Ainslie Gore, a sketch from life

AINSLIE GORE

AINSLIE GORE

A SKETCH FROM LIFE

BY

MAJOR ^GAMBIER-PARRY

AUTHOR OF "ANNALS OF AN ETON HOUSB "

ETC. ETC.

Tary no longer ; toward thyn heritage

Haste on thy way, and be of right good chere.

Go ech day onward on thy pilgrimage ;
Thynk how short time thou shall abyde here."

Vox ultima crucis. JOHN L.YDGATE, 1370-1447 (?).

LONDON

SMITH, ELDER & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE
1914

[All rights reserved]

Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON &> Co.
at the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh

TO

THE PEOPLE OF
DENTON

WHO KNEW HIM AND LOVED HIM
I DEDICATE THESE PAGES

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

I. PRELIMINARIES i

II. His HOME, FORBEARS, AND BOYHOOD . 21

III. ETON DAYS 66

IV. FATHER AND SON 114

V. ABROAD AND AT HOME . . . .156

VI. SOME SOLDIERING, AND OTHER THINGS . 187

VII. THE SUMMONS 240

VIII. EASTWARD 262

IX. THE END OF THE JOURNEY . . . 288

vii

AINSLIE GORE

A SKETCH FROM LIFE
CHAPTER I

PRELIMINARIES

THIS is what lies upon the table at the moment
a bundle of letters, some scraps of paper with
notes of conversations and other data in my
own handwriting, and a common, penny ac-
count book with a green paper cover and mock
white stitching in imitation of a ledger. This
last has obviously never been put to the pur-
pose for which it had been originally designed,
but used as a diary, the various entries show-
ing that they had been made in pencil during a
few short weeks. The writing is a good deal
rubbed ; the corners and edges are stained and
worn ; and the book itself shows signs of
having been much crumpled, as if carried for
long in some one's pocket.

Up to last night these letters and papers had

2 AINSLIE GORE

been lying for years locked in a drawer, tied
up with a narrow strip of buckskin that had
once been pipe-clayed but had long since turned
yellow. The whole collection amounted to
very little, and there was something almost
forlorn about its appearance. Yet it was all
there was to go by all from which a record
might be compiled of a short life, and what
had once been a close, personal intercourse.

Could anything be done ? That is what I
had asked myself before, and what I asked my-
self again now. Memory would come to my
help and fill some gaps. These notes that I
had made years ago might bring other matters
back to mind. And then again, there were
those still living who had witnessed the whole
life and who would be able to recall much
tell me of what was said and what was thought ;
recount for me episodes to do with earlier days ;
and set me right where I was wrong. A few
of the older friends of the family could certainly
be relied upon ; but the quarter where I felt I
could get more what I wanted than elsewhere
was among the villagers in his own home.
They knew him and had in many a case loved
him, and among the inhabitants of the place,
therefore from the tenant of the largest farm
to the poorest labourer on the land help would

PRELIMINARIES 3

be forthcoming, and in such ways I might be
able to make up for the slenderness of these
remains. It was worth an effort.

I had often cast a glance at the bundle, but,
for many a year, had never undone the tie till
last night. Why should I ? I knew exactly
what lay there, or thought I did even to
knowing some of the letters and the rest by
heart. He was my friend my one, great,
intimate friend ; and so it was that I had rarely
even looked at the outside of the drawer with-
out momentarily realising what lay there.

I knew that this packet of letters was safe
where it was, and also that the small locked
drawer of the piece of Chippendale, with its
beautiful inlay and characteristic brass handles,
standing in the corner of my room, held many
precious things besides that, in fact, that par-
ticular drawer was as my holy of holies the
contents a kind of epitome of a life and there-
fore to be approached in a becoming spirit, and
not when one was short of a job on a wet day.
To fumble in it in that way would, to my mind,
be tantamount to sacrilege. One must be quite
alone when handling such things, and absolutely
safe from interruption at least, such was my
feeling.

Thus it was only last night, late, when the

4 AINSLIE GORE

rest of the household had retired to bed, that,
the spirit moving me, I took a candle, and sat
down on a low rush chair and turned the lock.
Then I realised in a moment that I was quite
wrong. The scent of the drawer that indefin-
able scent that all old drawers and their contents
acquire as a matter of certainty in course of
years was familiar enough ; but memory had
played me false, and instead of knowing the
many things that met my eye, I found I had
quite forgotten some of them were there at all.
Here, for instance, was a string of black and
gold Venetian beads, wrapped carefully in
tissue paper. These, of course, had their story.
Then, close to a long envelope containing three
commissions signed by the greatest of all
Queens, was an ordinary pill-box, and inside
this a bullet, with a mark upon it as though it
had struck something and smashed it. A date
had been scratched in the lead on one side ;
and this is quite sufficient about that. Next
to it was a number of regimental buttons
strung on a leather bootlace and now much
tarnished, and near them an envelope with
this upon it, under a star in red chalk : " A
piece of our old Regimental Colour that was
carried at the Alma, especially, and all through
the Crimea, as well as the Indian Mutiny,

PRELIMINARIES 5

N.B. Over a thousand men are said to have
fallen beneath the Colours of which this scrap
is a part."

A single brass spur ; the mute of a violin ;
a carefully folded piece of music paper, with a
tune an old, forgotten, Irish folk-song, scrib-
bled down originally in pencil by this friend of
mine as he listened to it sung on the rain-
drenched slopes of Bochragh, and subsequently
beautifully harmonised came next, together
with a small flat case, lined with crimson satin
and containing three medals and clasps, with
coloured ribbons.

These last, again, might pass ; but lying
close by, was a dog's collar, with the name
" Murphy " thereon, together with a cotton
handkerchief with a blue border. Such things
told much, and were accordingly folded away
carefully again in a corner. A small cigar-box
held a wonderful assortment of relics a salmon
fly ; an empty cartridge from a sporting rifle ;
a leather watch chain with a rusty steel swivel ;
a small silver flask bearing the names of two
campaigns engraved on one side ; a photograph
of a mother and a child in a battered, leather
case ; and a prayer-book much stained by salt
water. Each of course had its story, though
such need not concern us here.

6 AINSLIE GORE

The bundle of letters and papers now in
front of me was on quite a different plane.
They had lain right at the back of the drawer,
together with the battered, green, penny ac-
count book ; and beneath them was a copy of
the New Testament in French, bound in red
morocco, and with the name of a dead sister
on the fly-leaf.

It had seemed to me, formerly, to be fitting
that these should lie together, and it seems so
still the one with the name of a sister I had
passionately loved in her own handwriting, and
this packet these meagre details of a close
and intimate friendship docketed by myself
simply with his name AINSLIE GORE.

The night was young when I removed the
packet to the table, undid the tie, and began
scanning one letter after another. With the
exception of five that I knew lay together
somewhere here, all were addressed to myself,
and some dated back to the days of our boy-
hood. We had been neighbours in the
country ; we were sent to our first school to-
gether ; had gone on to Eton together later ;
and finally joined the same Regiment, and
lived the full life that young soldiers do, seeing
many things, doing many more, and dreaming
many dreams ; the road of life lying broad and

PRELIMINARIES 7

open in front, in the blaze of the glad sun,
with nothing apparently to check the swing of
the march to the goal and the blue hills.

I only picked out a sentence or two in many
of the letters, passing some over unopened, or
with merely a glance at the date and the head-
ing. Then came one or two that were scanned
more closely before being returned jto their
envelopes, the hand unconsciously quickening
as the next and then the next were referred to.

The wording of most of them was familiar
enough ; so also the subjects touched upon.
Memory had at least not played one false here.
The very hours of which many of these letters
spoke returned vividly to mind as I read : I
was back again in "the singing season," when
the days rang from morn till eve with boyish
laughter and each successive summer was a
twelvemonth long back, too, to the days when
boyhood was left finally behind, when outlook
began to grow more serious and ideas more
definite.

The convictions and principles that had ruled
this life had remained much the same through-
out. Subjected from time to time to fresh
influences they had necessarily been, the world
being no place in which to walk about with a
cut and dried formula in the pocket. New

8 AINSLIE GORE

impressions had necessarily come with the
years, and new estimates had been quietly
made, character being built up and strengthened
by such means, and growing always, with him,
to fairer proportions.

He was never one to accept what he met
with on trust. Rather was his habit of mind
to analyse everything, and thus when some
new principle, or what struck him as being
possibly essential, came within his range, he,
so to speak, took it and flung it on the counter
to see what ring it had, or whether it would
ring at all. Once satisfied on such score, he
was singularly tenacious of change ; but it must
be confessed that the standard to which he
habitually subjected matters was a high one,
and that the rules governing his actions and
even at times, as I thought, too rigidly were
no ordinary ones.

Such habits he had no doubt originally
acquired in his home. His home was his
standard, and I have certainly never met one
in whom home influences remained so green,
and throughout the term of life that was granted
him. It was not so much in the direction of
the things he had lisped in early childhood or
had been told by his father and mother, but
was more to be sought in the whole atmosphere

PRELIMINARIES 9

of his bringing up the exceeding beauty of
his surroundings, indoors and out ; the examples
he had always before him ; the refining influ-
ences he was continually imbibing, and in his
earlier days quite unconsciously.

To beauty in its countless forms he was
ever peculiarly susceptible, especially beauty
in nature. He lived an outdoor life, and thus
grew up familiar with all things to do with the
land, from where to look for the signs of the
first awakening of spring, to what snipe and
wild duck would be about when the seasons
of the year had nearly run their course, when
skies were dark with snow, and northerly winds
blew keen. I often used to think that beauty
in some form was a necessity to him. It was
not only out of doors that he looked for it and
took his fill ; it was the same at all times, no
matter where he might be or what engaged
upon. Thus, quite apart from the material
things that met his eye, he sought for it, accord-
ing to his mood at the moment and as if hungry
and in need of food.

Now and again he would spend whole hours
absorbed in the sonnets of Shakespeare, read-
ing them till he had many a one by heart
among his favourite poems in Shelley, Keats,
or Wordsworth, or in studying closely such

10 AINSLIE GORE

works as The Ring and the Book, and In
Memoriam. He would get up after that,
thrust his hands deep into his pockets, and walk
out oblivious of anyone in the room at the time ;
and on reaching outdoor air, would sometimes
throw his head up, looking at the sky, as if he
sought answer there to some question that
puzzled him.

Of the poets he was never tired ; but I always
thought that of the many influences that went
to mould him, music was answerable for as
much as any. For the piano he had a natural
facility, being also gifted with an exceptionally
beautiful touch. He always spoke of Beethoven
with awe. He played Chopin well. He was
fond of Schumann. Mendelssohn, so far as the
piano was concerned, possessed few attractions
for him, and he left him generally alone. At
the same time he played light things and pretty
things by later-day composers, realising that if
others were to be interested and entertained, it
was necessary for him to cultivate a certain
catholicity of taste.

When alone by himself, and if anyone chanced
to pass the library where the largest piano dwelt,
they would hear him as often as not playing
Bach ; the great Master always standing to
him in the light of a king. I remember inter-

PRELIMINARIES u

rupting him one day when so engaged and
when I had waited long for him to join me in
an expedition to our stream, the May fly being
then on the water and trout rising freely. He
would not be enticed away and did not stop,
but went on steadily from the prelude he was
studying to the end of the fugue. Then he
jumped up, exclaiming " Here! this is selfish!"
his eyes quite dark in colour and his face full
of light. His was a tall lissom figure, and he
walked with slinging gait, and the next moment
we were striding out together to see if we
could land some of those fish.

" I don't know what it is about music," he
said, his arm in mine, and his head bent slightly
towards me " or if you would understand me.
At times I am afraid of it. It sets me on fire,
and I feel as if I daren't go near it. I know,
too, that it makes a fool of me now and then,
and am jolly well ashamed of it. But some-
times, and when listening to something exactly
in tune with the moment, I can tell you this
given the right tune, perhaps at the wrong
time, I firmly believe that music could lead me
to the devil/'

Shortly after that he made several beautiful
casts right under the hanging branches of some
willows and against the wind, hooked the best

12 AINSLIE GORE

fish of the evening, and landed it, with a joy-
ousness that might have made a stranger write
him down as first and before all a sportsman,
perhaps as a fisherman and nothing else.

Yet, in reality, there were as few limits to
his pursuits as there were to his interests, though
it is right to add that one among these last
invariably stood out prominently from the rest.
I have said that his home was the standard by
which he judged most things ; it was also his
passion, and for it no sacrifice could ever be
too great. His love for it influenced his life,
and to a large extent governed and controlled
his actions as he grew up.

And if, in his sensitive way, he shrunk from
logical conclusions, and thrust from him all
thought to do with the future here, so far as it
might concern himself, he knew that, humanly
speaking, his beautiful home would one day be
his ; that to him would fall the care of it, with all
the responsibilities and obligations that owner-
ship entailed ; and, what was of even greater
importance in his eyes, the maintenance of the
traditions of his race. Of these last he was
rightly jealous, pride of family being very strong
in him, and the honour of his class more precious
than all possible possessions put together. He
was well born, and showed this at all points ;

PRELIMINARIES 13

there was every prospect of his being fairly well
off, and, knowing this, he was at all times
open-handed to a fault. Possessed of such
traditions, given to all manly exercises and out-
door pursuits, favoured as he was by birth, and
graced with good looks and a winning manner,
he stood always for what he was as good an
example as might be found of what an English
gentleman might be.

Faults, of course, he had. He was some-
what quick tempered, impetuous, and given to
be over critical ; and he certainly never suffered
fools gladly. He would often fire up when
things annoyed him, especially where he fancied
the actions of others were wanting in charity
or were unjust. And if such faults as these
were in many instances the common failings of
youth, there were signs later on in his short
life of his getting the better of them.

Where wrong was done to himself he could
forgive at once ; but he could not altogether
forget at the same time, and in this he differed
little from the remainder of mankind. With a
temperament such as his, he could not fail to
be somewhat sensitive. Possibly he liked to
be liked, though he never showed the slightest
trace of any craving for popularity, and indeed
always condemned anything of the kind. He

14 AINSLIE GORE

never strove to put himself in the forefront,
and he was always unduly modest a failing
more than a fault, and that in his case added a
certain charm to his character.

Looking back now, it seems impossible to
judge him by any ordinary standard. He was
too many-sided. The calling he chose might
have seemed to some likely to prove quite
foreign to his disposition ; yet he had from the
first refused to hear of any other, finally throw-
ing his whole heart into it and being marked
by those who watched him as one certain to
rise to the top. In the same way, his dreamy,
Celtic temperament, tinged as it was by a
certain melancholy and a besetting love of soli-
tude his love of music and his poetic tenden-
cies might have created a doubt about his
being at heart a sportsman ; yet besides a
natural aptitude for games of all kinds and
he seemed to revel in the joys of them all alike
he was a first-class horseman and rider to
hounds, and excelled as a shot ; often mention-
ing, with a merry laugh, that he was duly
" blooded " out cubbing in charge of the coach-
man, when seven years of age and when he
brought home a pad in his pocket to the sub-
sequent annoyance of the household and fur-
thermore that he shot his first rabbit when nine.

PRELIMINARIES 15

There were many references to such things
in these earlier letters, and also to those others
outlined here ; but I found myself passing most
of them by after a while, and looking for some-
thing else. I came upon what I wanted at
last five letters and the small book, tied to-
gether separately with a piece of crimson silk.

One was in a girlish hand and quite short
and unimportant a mere line of thanks for
something that had been forgotten, and ending
" I am commanded by father and mother (!)
to ask you to come and shoot, over Slapton's,
on Thursday, and to sleep the night ; and I
am to say that they will be so pleased if you
can manage it."

Those referred to here were my own parents,
and the writer of this apparently innocent letter
was the sister just spoken of. Perhaps he had
read into it something not visible to others. I
think so, for he had prized the note sufficiently
to take it to India with him a few days after it
was written. The others lying with it, were
one from his father and another from his
mother, with two from myself. The whole
came into my possession, with the small account
book, in the course of my duties, and I was
subsequently allowed to retain them all.

I only glanced at a few more after that : the

16 AINSLIE GORE

light of the lamp was growing dim, and my
candles had nearly burnt themselves out. The
last I opened ran to two sheets. It was mostly
on a subject that always interested him, and
ended thus : "My own feeling in regard to
such a speculation as this, is that if the world
were just, men would oftener pass for what
they are. As it is, the world not for the most
part being so, appearances and possessions,
place and the purse, go frequently to form the
verdict. You know what I have always said,
and I hold by it. A man is great by what he
is, not by what he does, much less by what he
has. It seems to me, therefore, that we human
beings, apart from the opinions of our fellows,
ought always to strive to be, rather than to
appear to strut the stage, saying, * See what a
fine figure I cut look this way, please, all of
you ! ' That's what that means. You know
what Tennyson says in Love thou thy Land: I
often repeat the lines to myself

Nor toil for title, place, or touch

Of pension, neither count on praise :
It grows to guerdon after-days :

Nor deal in watch-words over much.

That's about it, I think. Be yourself, and let
the rest slide. But I am getting prosy : it is
late, and I must stop. Good-bye, A.G,"

PRELIMINARIES 17

The last words brought the fact home to
myself. It was late ; or rather, dawn was at
hand and another day would be shortly break-
ing. The letters had all been numbered, when
they were first put into the drawer years ago,
and they were all in their proper sequence now.
The few remaining papers I scarcely looked
at ; but tied the whole up again, and then sat
down with them in front of me, to lose myself
for half an hour in thought.

I had not expected, when I opened the
drawer some hours before, that the old
memories would return with such vividness.
I thought I knew, and all too well, the salient
points in the story of this life, and so I did.
But scanning these letters rapidly, one after
the other, had made me realise that earlier
impressions had in reality become dim by lapse
of time : the past stood out once more before
me with almost painful clearness : the familiar,
loose-knit figure the striking, thoughtful face
even the sound of the voice, seemed to return,
as though this one intimate friend were again
close to me in this room of mine.

I went to the nearest window, drew up the
blind and threw up the sash. In the intense
stillness that reigns so often in the hour when
dawn silently makes way for daybreak, the

i8 AINSLIE GORE

whole picture came back to mind, and the old
questions that had battled for answer surged
up anew to meet the same relentless silence
as before. Sorrow had passed away : time's
good hand had seen to that. One no longer
mourned, though memories were green as ever.
Some day the reason would appear, and as
certainly as the light of the sun that would
presently shoot up above the blue hills and
the dark majestic forms of the great trees,
and sweep all shadows from the sky. There
could be no doubt whatever about that, and I
remembered well his firm convictions on such
points.

Meanwhile, what of this short life, these
letters, these papers, and the rest ? Did no
message lie here? No life ever born into
the world is without its office, and no one dies
to himself. One of the most appalling facts
of existence is, on the contrary, that our acts
and their results run on and live ; the great
consolation being that they are not, perhaps,
all bad, and that good in some form, and more
often than some think, comes out of ill.

There were riddles here in plenty, as else-
where, and I remembered his saying to me
once " Nothing from which humanity suffers
is without Divine significance. I know it to

PRELIMINARIES 19

be desperately hard to understand ; but some-
how or other I feel it to be true. Don't
you see, my dear fellow, that otherwise life
would often be a tragedy in one act and
nothing more, there being an end to us all
at the fall of the curtain. There can't be
a God in heaven and that / It would mean
waste ; and I have never been able to find
indisputable evidence of waste anywhere.

" Of course we ask questions," he went on
" we are meant to. Progress is impossible
without inquiry ; and life means progress, mind
you the very antithesis of death. Of course
it may be little use to expect answer always ;
but that doesn't mean that we are not to go
on asking and making inquiries to the utmost
possible length. Depend upon it, we shall
get an answer of some sort, either individually
or collectively, and humanity will have pro-
gressed another width of a hair.

" What I hate most is the chap who chucks
and won't go on just jacks up, you know,
and swears all the conditions on this side the
line are hopeless. That must be wrong,
mustn't it and principally for the reason that
life is no funeral procession ; life leads to life,
not death!"

I seemed to hear the words again quite

20 AINSLIE GORE

distinctly. Perhaps I was overwrought after
the night hours and all that the reopening
of these letters and the rest had meant to me.
" Life leads to life, not death," I kept repeating
to myself; finally exclaiming, as if in acquies-
cence " Yes, that's quite true ! "

A white light was showing in the sky over
the Cotswolds, and at the same moment the
rooks began to talk to one another in the
neighbouring elms. It was the middle of May,
and the young birds were no longer roosting
in the nests. The sun would rise in another
ten minutes. The airs of daybreak were be-
ginning to move, bearing with them the scents
of the dawn. It was nearly four o'clock.

The papers were carefully returned to the
drawer after that ; and as I crossed the hall,
the glass in the upper part of the great oriel
window there glowed like a thousand jewels,
for the rim of the sun showed over the hills.

" Yes," I said to myself " I will try, even
though I fail in my drawing to give any beauty
of line."

CHAPTER II

HIS HOME, FORBEARS, AND BOYHOOD

DENTON MANOR, the family home, where
Ainslie Gore was born on the 25th of October
1872, stands on the slopes of the Cotswold
Hills, facing west and commanding a wide
view of the Severn vale undulating lands,
great woods, and broad fields, bordered for the
most part by magnificently timbered hedge-
rows, lying spread out below like a map of
many colours. Nor is this all. On the farther
side of the great river itself, the line of Dene
Forest is often clearly visible from the front
of the house, with the Welsh mountains now
and again beyond that, especially when the
warm rains that sweep up Bristol Channel
have washed the air crystal clear in spring-
time.

On such days, it is even possible to count
the trees in the clump on the summit of May
Hill, set there originally, men say, as service-
able landmarks for bargemen whose lot it was,

22 AINSLIE GORE

and is, to navigate the wide Severn estuary.
There are shallow, fixed sands there, like the
Great Noose just below Newnham, and many
miles, too, of dangerous shifting banks, spread
east of this and stretching from off Frampton
to Purton Passage farther south ay, and
always with the treacherous tides about them,
to make matters still more hazardous ; these
last racing on always, with their voices not
those of the sea though they come with the
cry of all the gulls racing on still, with
the solemn herons above them, to start the
roaring bore on its impetuous journey far
inland.

You can see these sands plainly from Denton,
though some way off, and watch the tides
slowly covering and laying them bare again
in the glint of the summer sun, or in the moon-
light of frosty, winter nights. The Manor
House stands high, in a park of some three
hundred acres, and is to be seen itself from all
the country round. Immediately about it are
gardens of great beauty, with fine oak and elm
timber on every hand, and with cedars nigh
two centuries in age to give shade upon its
level lawns. The date of the house, which is
of old red brick, is late Elizabethan ; and this
is confirmed, not only by its obvious character,

HIS HOME, FORBEARS, AND BOYHOOD 23

but also by this inscription, now almost obliter-
ated, over its entrance door

Blefs this house ere y e be gone,
And God will bless y e passing on.
1599. GRG.

The initials are those of the Gore who estab-
lished his family here in the first instance, and
whose body rests in front of the altar in the
village church, the ivy-clad tower of which is
visible from the windows, standing amidst tall
elms and a few scattered cottages with stone
walls and stone-tiled roofs, grey in colour and
beautiful to look upon.

The full name of this member of the family
was Giles Roger Gore. He lived to be old,
his age being given on his tomb as 72, and
the date of his death as 1651. He must have
seen and heard of strange doings in his lifetime,
being already nine years of age when the
Spanish Armada was swept from the seas, and
surviving Charles I by two years. And if
there are few records of him in the old Manor
House that he certainly built beyond a fine
portrait by Van Dyck, this at least is established
that he fought for the King in the great
Civil War. He is known without doubt to
have been at Lansdown and Roundway Down,

24 AINSLIE GORE

when Waller was defeated ; to have witnessed
the fall of Bristol ; to have seen the King
master over all the south-west country saving
Plymouth. He was with the King when he
stopped to lay siege to Gloucester and fortune
began from that hour to desert the Royal cause.
He saw the siege raised, and was crippled
for life by wounds received just afterwards at
Newbury.

There is also told of him this, that is signifi-
cant of the spirit of the man. He took his
eldest son with him to the war, though then
but seventeen years of age ; and when the
youth was discovered stark and stiff upon the
field, where he himself lay sorely wounded, he
is said to have exclaimed to those who came to
tell him of his loss " Had I ten instead of two,
and God so willed, they should e'en die for his
Majesty as this our gallant Amos hath ! "

The Gores of those days were staunch, loyal
folk, recking nothing, so long as they might do
what seemed to them to be their duty ; caring
little for hard knocks, and ready to deal them
in return with interest where the Country's
welfare was at stake. Such were evidently
common characteristics among these men, and
continued so to be among their descendants
right on through the centuries.

HIS HOME, FORBEARS, AND BOYHOOD 25

Thus some went out into the world in search
of adventure, or obeyed the call to arms, while
others remained on their estates at Denton,
experiencing all the ups and downs that marked
the eighteenth century for those on the land,
whether owners, farmers, or labourers. Many
documents, still extant among the family papers,
show these things plainly, and especially, too,
how money was lavished in improving the
property, and the active personal interest that
was taken in farming when it came to be the
reigning taste of the day. The head of the
family for the time being seems generally to
have regarded his home as his first care, and
to have trained his sons to so regard it when
their turn came that is, when these sons did
not chance to be fighting for their Country far
afield. The family papers leave no room for
doubt on that score.

And so it comes about that there are ample
records here old stained and faded letters,
together with contemporary diaries, later jot-
tings and the rest detailing how this and that
one took part in the French and American wars
of 1775-83, and how others fought and bled
and gave their lives, right through the long
years 1793-1815, when all Europe was in arms

26 AINSLIE GORE

and the figure of Napoleon overshadowed the
world.

It seems to have been a point of honour with
them to go where blows were being struck.
Their Country was, to them, their Country.
They were content to till its soil, to live always
in the home, to work for the common weal ;
but if a call came for them from other fields,
they realised the larger claim and went out
sword in hand to strike a blow for the Country's
sake ; and, though they did not grasp this fully
in the earlier days, to add a brick to the build-
ing of an Empire over Seas. There were wild
ones among them of course, and certainly one
who brought the family to the verge of ruin ;
but the wildness of this one's life set a limit to
his days, and by much subsequent self-denial
and strenuous work on the part of his successors,
Denton was put upon its feet again.

The Gores, then, were plain English squires,
fit representatives of a class that was for long
regarded as England's backbone ; men who
lived among their people and knew them, being
loved by them in turn ; whose aim was peace
and happiness in life, but whose sons were
always at the call of their Country, either on
sea or land, to the uttermost ends of the world.
Tradition was very strong among these men.

HIS HOME, FORBEARS, AND BOYHOOD 27

and had been handed down through generations;
and those who lived around them, whether in
cottage or farmhouse, were no less jealous that
such traditions should be preserved. These
last liked to see those on whose land they lived,
occupying the shoes of their forbears in what
they judged to be a fitting manner with open-
handedness and hospitality, living and letting
live, just to all men alike, doing their duty as
English gentlemen, without fear, and with
honour always first.

A marked personal pride belonged to many
of these people of the land. They equally had
their traditions, and such were bound up in many
an instance with those of "the family," as they
usually designated their neighbours living up at
the big house. Few things they enjoyed more
than being able to show their knowledge in
such connection, and for a visitor to make a
mistake was almost certainly to be corrected
in some such way as this: " No, zir; beggin'
your pardon. 'Twer' hisn's gran'fayther as
builded they Almshouses. Mine did used to
work for un, so mi old fayther 'ould tell ; an' he
did often say as he see'd un, times, when er
was a-layin' of it out. Hisn's son wer' this here
Mr. John, an' it wus he as did found the loaf
and blanket charity. Ah ! the times me an'

28 AINSLIE GORE

mi old missus 'a blessed he 'ould take some
reckonin', I judges ; an' that's truth."

Such folk as these knew the family's genea-
logy to a nicety, and if not personally cognisant
of facts to do with earlier days, would add the
inevitable, "so I've hear'd tell" in broadest
Gloucestershire. And wonderful, too, were
the stories they could recount about various
members of the same their feats of strength
and horsemanship especially. They liked to
see a bit of dare-devil in that class ; admired
pluck and fearlessness; and " didn't hold wi'
'oomanness in men at all, at all." Thus they
would relate, with many a grin, how " this
un went out to the wars an' never come 'ome,"
or how " that un for a wager did take un's
horse over the upright park palin's, that un
did " ; how " ourn bells was rung for this un's
wedding," >or " Tom wer' tolled two hours
long, when that un wer' took back." Such
items were, to their minds, nothing less than
the most important part of the history of the
place, and fit to be preserved accordingly.

Of all the stories, however, there was one
that went the rounds continually, and does so
still, though in somewhat altered fashion. It
had to do with the first of the Gores, and
ran in this way, in Willum, the cobbler's word-

HIS HOME, FORBEARS, AND BOYHOOD 29

ing: "You must know as] un had a famous
horse, an' as the Lysett o' that day, whose
property did run wi' hisn's, and do so yet
wull, he had jus' such another. An' nothin'
'ouldn't suit 'em but er must wager one agin
another for a hunderd pound, an' as to which
on 'em 'ould zwim furthest out in Severn when
tide wus high. So down 'em goes to banks
wer' it be two mile across yonder, by Kingston
Pill, aboove the Royal Drift an' sets to a-
zwimming for arl as 'em wus worth. 'Twus
but a risky job, as it most ways be wher'
Severn do have his say. An' it wer' Roger's
horse as won, he did, for t'other did zwim
an' zwim till un was drounded.

" But when Roger as I makes so bold as
to call un wull, when Roger did come ashore
wi' hisn's an' blow'd proper, they tells as he
wus, both man an' horse he says, when he
looks at un ' Never another day's work shall
ye do. Ye shall be turned out for the rest
o' yer days in the leer 1 paddock, ye shall,
and yer shoes shall hang on church door,' he
says. An' if yer misdoubts what I do tell
ye, step over to church yonder, an' look inside
porch wi' yer own eyen ; an' ther' behind

1 Empty or vacant: a good example of a Saxon word still
in use in the county.

30 AINSLIE GORE

a bit o' wire nettin' an' set in iron frame,
like, be half one o' hisn's shoes and the whole
of another : both of 'em be fore shoes, what
be lef. That's they, right eno' yas yas
an' what I been a-tellin' on yer be just Bible's
truth : an' he hitched 'em ther' hisself, he did
on thic ther' door, as everyun do know."

The doings of the family in the big house
remained, in this way, subjects of perennial
interest among those who lived and worked
on the estate, whether such belong to tradition,
fell within living memory, or were matters of
to-day. Between them, in the course of genera-
tions, had sprung up a personal relationship
that made for happiness, that scouted strangers
talking with glib tongues, and resented outside
interference.

These people of the land, as always, were
very critical ; but here, as elsewhere through-
out the Country, the verdict they passed was
based on knowledge gathered at first hand,
whether among this class or that farmer or
working hand, vicar or schoolmaster, the keeper
of the village shop or the landlord of the
village inn, the blacksmith that shod the Squire's
horses or the bargemen that landed him his
coal from the other side of Severn. Each
one brought his quota of the things he knew.

HIS HOME, FORBEARS, AND BOYHOOD 31

Those they criticised among themselves were
always before them in one way and another :
they lived their lives hard by one another ;
they passed each other continually in the lanes
and the fields, going about their daily duties ;
and between them there was always therefore
something of a common outlook.

Then again, at Denton, as in countless other
places, there was continuity. The farms had
passed from father to son for generations, being
reckoned as good as freeholds by those who
tilled them ; the cottagers called their houses
their homes, and were always ready to tell
you, moreover, that "they and their'n had
lived ther' year on year, they had." The
very names of these people were a distinct
part of the parish, and to look through the
registers, right back to the seventeenth century,
was to meet with Tratmans and Gydes, Rutters
and Alliffs, Webbs and Parsloes and the rest
the names being often spelt in all kinds of
strange ways, even where brothers were con-
cerned and always, whether in case of births
or marriages or deaths, with those others
scattered over the pages the names of these
Gores of many generations.

All classes, then, were continually together
here in the affairs of every day ; and there

32 AINSLIE GORE

was unity and much of happiness. The re-
joicings at a birth, the feastings at a wedding,
the mourning at the close of a life, were shared,
in great measure, by all these folk alike, though
tradition has it, further, that few things moved
this village community more at any time than
the birth of a son and heir to the estates.

Certainly, when Ainslie was born, this last
was more than ever the case. Denton had
long stood without a direct heir, and Rupert
Gore and his wife Edith, daughter of Sir
Alwyn Ward in the same county were ap-
proaching middle age when he appeared.
The Squire himself had seen something of
active service in the Crimea, and on hearing
that a son and heir was his, exclaimed in
his jovial manner " And on Balaclava day,
too ! That's just first-rate, and will mark the
boy himself for a certainty." After which he
relapsed for a while into reminiscences to do
with events of long ago, and then went off
in some haste to find the leader of the bell-
ringers, that the peal in the belfry down at
the church might carry the news all over the
parish.

It was a still, golden, autumn day without a
breath of wind stirring, so the sound of the
merry peal was heard afar, and that night the

HIS HOME, FORBEARS, AND BOYHOOD 33

subject was the talk in nearly every house in
the place. Of course there were the time-
honoured feastings, according to custom ; the
cider horn being passed round freely, and there
being much rejoicing. But the feeling went a
good deal farther than this with the majority
at Denton, and as the boy grew up, and came
to be referred to as " That be Mr. Ainslie, our
young Squire" there were some, and more
especially the head keeper, Giles Merrett, the
old coachman, William Welfare, and such like,
who fancied that, out of doors at least, they
were entitled to have a hand in his bringing
up, just as there were others "who kep' an
eye on him, unbeknownst" lest harm befell
him.

Among the farmers and the majority of
the cottagers, it was much the same. The
one who would some day be their Squire was
regarded here as almost common property ;
and while he rode his pony with the Berkeley
hounds till it was blown, or appeared round
the corner of a covert stalking rabbits on a
summer evening, there were many who con-
sidered his credit as bound up with their own,
and took note of him as he grew up with an
ever-increasing interest.

And while the inhabitants of the place and

c

34 AINSLIE GORE

the more prominent among the dependents up
at the house, talked and acted in these ways,
the boy, Ainslie, himself grew up in an atmos-
phere that was fitted above all others to qualify
him for his position in life. He knew every
yard of the estate before he had been long in
his teens, and had come by this knowledge,
and much else, out hunting. He had picked
up something about the crops in the fields
how and when they were sown, grew up, and
were harvested and had learnt this when shoot-
ing over the manor. He had come to know
the points to look for in sheep and stock, just
as he had in the case of a horse, having gathered
these things in chats with stockmen or from
the kindly words of the farmers. He had
learnt at the same time the elements of wood-
craft how trees were planted, oaks stripped,
the numerous uses to which ash poles could be
put, the value of larch in and out of ground,
how ash stood in comparison with oak the
head woodman who had served the family from
boyhood delighting to answer his questions
when he came upon the men in the depths of
the woods in the winter season.

All these things, and many a score of others,
he was gathering always, consciously or uncon-
sciously, as he roamed about in his holidays as

HIS HOME, FORBEARS, AND BOYHOOD 35

a boy ; just as, when he came to be a little
older, he learnt something of the outlook of
those who lived their lives here, who worked
here and had worked here always their idio-
syncrasies, their characters that were so difficult
to comprehend, the hardships that were an
inseparable part of their existence, their daily
round of toil in all weathers, the narrow margin
that lay at all times between such labouring
folk and want.

Then again, while all here did not regard
him from the same point of view such being
an impossibility anywhere he learnt to give
and take, to understand that all could not think
alike, that because such an one was an awk-
ward customer, or an idler worth no wage at
all ; because this one had become soured by
misfortune, or that one had strange ideas in
his head there was no reason for him to give
them the cold shoulder. There were men of
all sorts here, as elsewhere, and women too ;
and with many there was another side to the
one they often showed, and which seemed to
declare that to understand it all a lifetime
would be required, if even the rudiments of
this lesson could be learnt in that.

There was only one way in which it could
be attempted, and this was by walking the

36 AINSLIE GORE

land, mixing with the fathers and the mothers,
and growing up with the children of the same.
Only by such means could the necessary know-
ledge be imbibed, by which acts might be
governed in the future that lay ahead ; only by
acquiring these things, here and now, could
just opinions be formed in later years, as if by
instinct, when difficulties arose.

There were secrets here that money could
never buy, and that were so subtle in their
character that even those who held the key to
them rarely realised their value when they
brought them out for use. They were a part
of the life, as the air was the life of the fields.
These things, hidden away in tradition, could
not be defined or analysed ; but behind them
for prize, to those who had studied and had
come to know, there lay ahead again this the
confidence, the trust, even, it may be, the love,
that the people of the land know how to give,
and always in a way that is their own.

And if I, who write, know well that in the
case of Ainslie Gore the conditions of his up-
bringing were just these from the very first, it
is also impossible to omit a reference to those
other influences that were always at work in his
home. He was destined to be an only child,
and therefore to miss much, no less than to be

HIS HOME, FORBEARS, AND BOYHOOD 37

open to much more. But he was blessed with
wise parents, and of these it is necessary to say
a word.

His mother was of saintly character, but
wholly free from those weaknesses that are
sometimes found in such. Her religion was
the chief fact in regard to her, and to be even
a short time in her company was to feel this
without doubt at all. Yet it was never in the
forefront. You could see something of it in
her beautiful face ; it was reflected in her actions
and her daily life ; it came out in quiet moments ;
and the poor, to whose homes she went in their
hours of trouble, knew it well, and grew in
many a case to lean on her.

At the same time she was never anything
but her natural self. She loved life for its
opportunities : she was wise : she could enter
into the interests of all about her : she had the
keenest sense of fun ; she loved to see manli-
ness in men, to hear of their doings, their work,
their sports, their games ; but there ever shone
out in her the characteristics that mark woman-
liness at its purest and best, and thus her
influence was very wide. I knew her well,
from boyhood onwards, and I never failed to
realise that there was no one, outside my own
home, to whom I could go for opinion and

38 AINSLIE GORE

advice with greater certainty of help than to
her. She would listen, ask a few questions in
a gentle, affectionate way, and then tell you
what she felt. Her advice was not always
palatable ; but in the end there was never any
doubt about the wisdom of her conclusions.
Behind her natural gentleness there was
strength, and if you felt sometimes, in youthful
days, that her reproof was hard the more so,
perhaps, as it came from her it somehow
spurred you to get back into her good graces,
to see that smile on her face again, and to
realise anew as you grew older that here was
one who carried into her daily, busy life the
reflection of the principles to which she clung
who showed what capacity for loving might
really mean in woman, and that made of Denton
the home and the place that it was.

The people of the parish naturally loved her
deeply. She was their friend ; not as the lady
bountiful there was nothing whatever of that
about her, though there was no limit to her
generosity. She understood them, and each
one knew that they could come to her on all
occasions and that she, of a certainty, would
understand.

An old inhabitant described her once to me
exactly : it was Susan Mantel, who kept a little

HIS HOME, FORBEARS, AND BOYHOOD 39

sweet-shop, and also sold string and tallow
candles. She knew the talk of the place to a
nicety, and gathered many things, standing
behind her tiny counter, in her black, frilled
cap, red shawl, and blue cotton apron.

"Ah," she said, "ther 5 be our Squire's
good lady, now : she don't never pry. She do
come in, an' sets down, an' just be one o' our
sel', like, and no odds what caddie anyun be
in. And I reckons as I seen it, like a-this
and times, when trouble been a-gate the room
wer' lit, like, when she come in, and darker a
sight when she been gone ! "

Rupert Gore, on the other hand, was typical
of what a Squire might be. The eldest of three
sons, he had succeeded his father at Denton
when thirty-six years of age, and when he
shortly afterwards married. By way of keeping
touch with something of soldiering he joined
the County yeomanry, taking with him to the
ranks some half-dozen of his tenants or their
sons. He was fond of horses, and was known
as one of the best men to hounds in the Berkeley
field. Love of sport was born in him. He
was a first-class shot, and in his younger days
was never happier than when out by himself on
his wide, exposed lands along the banks of the
great tidal river waiting, perhaps, knee-deep

40 AINSLIE GORE

in flood water, for a flight of duck at cockshut ;
following up the reens and tramping the marshy
grounds for a chance at a snipe, or listening for
the drumming of their wings ; trying to get
the better of a flock of green plover, or watch-
ing for the coming of the wild geese at the
close of September.

It was a flat, lonely country down there,
with something almost weird about it where
cattle, and now and then great flocks of
sheep, gained subsistence, and across which
fierce, angry winds swept in winter-time,
coming up with the whole drift of the Bristol
Channel behind them and laden heavily with
snow. No weather was ever known to stop
Rupert Gore : he was hard as a chip of oak,
caring nothing for exposure, but rather revelling
in it, and telling many stories of what he had
heard and seen and felt, down there on those
wind-swept grass grounds when most men
were glad to be in shelter.

Yet while he was all this, Rupert Gore was
something far more. It was said of him after-
wards that he never neglected a duty. On
county business he was here, there, and every-
where, passing from this matter to that, till
some would say that he seemed almost to have
the faculty of being in two places at once. He

HIS HOME, FORBEARS, AND BOYHOOD 41

was by nature a hard worker, and he was an
early riser. When even the smallest detail
called for attention on his estate, he went and
inquired, and saw for himself, either alone or in
company with the agent or the steward. Then
he formed his own opinion without hesitation,
and acted on it.

No doubt he made mistakes at times ; but
his tenants always said that he " erred with
honesty, and that there was no more doubt
of his acting justly and honourably than there
could ever be of his open-handedness." They
one and all believed in him ; they liked him ;
they knew that "he knew a thing or two";
and they were content, therefore, to leave the
settlement of any difficulty or trifling dispute
to him. They welcomed him on their farms,
with that smile they knew well on his round,
good-humoured face ready for a chat or a
stroll across the fields with them ; taking as
much interest in their crops as if they were his
own, feeling a stroke of ill-luck no less keenly
than themselves, and bearing their losses
always in his mind.

Then, too, they liked to see him out in the
wind and the weather far off, perhaps, against
the sky-line passing time of day with the
men at plough, or on his way to pay the

42 AINSLIE GORE

shepherd a visit, when the snow was on the
ground and the man was often working night
and day in lambing time. Such men, for their
part, welcomed him no less heartily than their
employers, knowing well enough that when
times were hard he seldom went about empty-
handed. The very dogs greeted him in the
folds, just as the cottage women knew the wave
of his hand as he went by and the sound of
his cheery voice. The children racing out of
school one and all smiled at him. He could
address nearly all of them by name, and was
in the habit of stopping and having a word or
two with them when he met them in the lanes.
This hard-bitten-looking man loved a child, so
much so that it was commonly believed he
would have given his life for one at any time ;
and of course by that freemasonry that is a
part of child nature, and also of some dumb
animals, these children were no less aware
of it unconsciously themselves, losing their
shyness when in his company.

" It be a sight o' pity as he haven't got a
dozen of his own in place of one," remarked
Lawrence Allen to me on one occasion : he
held the Compass furlong, a small farm on
which he was always ready to show you where
a hare lay " alight o' pity, it be. But there,"

HIS HOME, FORBEARS, AND BOYHOOD 43

he added, his big, red face expanding into an
even broader smile than usual "but there, I'll
tell ye what. There be folks as says as it do
take a lifetime to make a farmer. I knows as
it doesn't! No lifetime'll do it. Bless the
life on yer, it have got to be bred in him afore
he starts. And if that be so, how long be it
a-goin' to take to make a Squire ? Can yer
tell me that ? O' course yer can't. Ther' he
goes, over yonder, see, in his breeches and
gaiters and his spud stick. An' there be folk
as thinks as they can buy that ! They bain't
so far out, may be, wi' the breechin' ; but all
the gold on earth'll never find t'other, or
replace un when er's gone ! " And he turned
from the gate on which he had been leaning,
without another word.

The origin of my being so much at Denton
and Ainslie with me in my home, especially
in our early boyhood, may, I think, be un-
doubtedly traced to the mutual wish of our
elders. Our homes were but three miles apart,
the two properties marching together for a
considerable distance. We were born in the
same year, and as I was brotherless and pos-
sessed an only sister somewhat younger than

44 AINSLIE GORE

myself, no doubt the parents on both sides
very old friends as they were considered it
advisable that their two boys should play and
get about together.

And there was certainly no mistake, as time
went on, about the play and the getting about.
The ideas governing the actions of our respec-
tive parents appear to have been that, within
reason, we were to be allowed as much latitude
as possible, and by this means learn how to
stand on our own feet and to walk on our own
toes. They may have also had it in their
minds that a special Providence habitually waits
on all boyish escapades, enabling them to grow
up, in spite of themselves, fairly complete in
the matter of limbs and with both eyes. It is
certainly well that they held such beliefs in
our case.

Looking back now, I feel that we must have
stretched the patience of that good Providence
to its utmost, as we certainly did that of those
excellent souls who were set over us, and often,
it must be owned, to breaking-point. We lived
a life of adventure, more especially in the
holidays after our first entry at a private school.
Whether Ainslie was staying with me, or I
with him, there were ponies to ride and fish to
be caught, guns to become acquainted with, and

HIS HOME, FORBEARS, AND BOYHOOD 45

games of all sorts to be played. And while,
apparently, we were allowed to do just as we
liked, and there were those always ready to
teach us the rudiments of these various accom-
plishments, from gamekeepers and coachmen,
to butlers and those patient footmen who were
had out to bowl to us in a blazing July sun, it
is only quite in later years that I have become
convinced that there was method in it all
that these good people at our elbows must have
all the while been receiving implicit directions
as to the course they were to follow under
certain circumstances.

Otherwise, it does not at once become
apparent why it was that when we had made
our way to old Giles Merrett's house in the
woods and asked for our guns, that he was
on those occasions generally not to be found
by his wife ; or if we caught him, that he had,
by some unaccountable mischance, lost the key
of the gun cupboard. In the search that
followed, whether for Giles himself or for the
key, we joined with ardour. But for some
reason not at all strange then, that search
proved generally quite fruitless, and we had to
return from whence we came unarmed. Now
I come to think of it, there were many episodes
of the kind, though they were always quite

46 AINSLIE GORE

natural to us then, if they were also attended
with a passing disappointment that left us for
the time a little glum.

But even with the best will in the world,
there was no safeguarding us at all points.
It would be difficult to say which was the
ringleader ; but I am inclined to think that
Ainslie was, though at times the blame was
certainly visited on me. There was no limit
to our energy ; all days were long, though
none too long for all we wished to do. The
land all round, and for a considerable distance,
belonged to our respective parents, and those
living on either property were almost to a
man our friends.

And here again it was very remarkable
how these friends came on the scene at moments
when we were walking into jeopardy. I cannot
conceive how this could have been otherwise
than planned, and by the same heads andjiands
as in the case of the guns, the ponies, and
the rest. As we became a little older and
reached twelve and thirteen, we naturally began
to kick against outside interference and in ways
that sometimes led to words with our good
friends aforesaid.

We had, I suppose, begun to feel our strength
in more directions than one. We had lived

HIS HOME, FORBEARS, AND BOYHOOD 47

an outdoor life and picked up many things,
fancying we knew a lot ; we were growing
fast and our muscles were beginning to harden ;
and in Ainslie's case, Mrs. Jinks, the Denton
housekeeper the personification of good-
nature, with whom we often wrestled was
not far wrong when she averred that he was
"just a little Arab, and muscle all over, so
that there was no holding of him." He was
strong in all ways, and muscularly so especially.
There were few trees he could not climb :
he could jump a sheep hurdle easily, and,
later on, clear many of the gates upon the
place : he could run down village boys older
than himself when he judged they were where
they had no right to be, and tackle them ;
and all games came to him easily.

Then again, while such things added to
his popularity, he was of singularly attractive
appearance and manner, even as a small boy ;
and Susan Mantel of the little shop would often
remark "Ah; ther' be our young Squire,
now. Look at un. Sunny, bain't he ? Why,
hisn's face be his fortune ; anyun can see a-that
anyun! "

I think old Susan was right. Lissom, active,
full of life and "go," built as straight as a line,
with fair hair and laughing grey eyes, and

48 AINSLIE GORE

declaring his breeding at all points, he was
a boy that would take anyone's fancy in a
moment, and win his way to their hearts no
less quickly.

It would, perhaps, be idle here to deal at
any length with our boyish doings and hair-
breadth escapes ; but one or two at least must
be referred to, for they illustrate Ainslie's charac-
ter. Water has always an attraction for boys,
and it had long been our desire to get afloat
on that innocent-looking Severn estuary here
some two miles in breadth, and with all those
sands far out as further attractions. The river
had never been placed out of bounds if indeed
we recognised the term at all and possibly
because there were no boats down there of
any kind, or so much even as a Severn punt
with cocked-up stern and bows. Then, too,
when the tide was out, a wide expanse of mud
fringed the shore, and there was at those hours
no getting to the water.

We had often asked John Gratian, the land-
lord of the Gore Arms, who, in his own ketch,
the Mayflower, had navigated these very waters
for years and knew more about them therefore
than any other man in Denton parish we had
often asked him about his past experiences,
and had stood open-mouthed when he recounted

HIS HOME, FORBEARS, AND BOYHOOD 49

for our benefit his wonderful escapes from being
cast away on those treacherous Severn banks.
We had even asked him once concerning the
possibility of our going afloat ourselves, if boat
could be found, when he answered us without
more ado in this fashion

" Now look ye here ; minds as you boys
never thinks of doin' the likes. And minds
for you to do that and for me to get wind on
it, be for me to go straight up to Squire and
tell un as the best thing as he can do, if it
be his meanin' to let the likes of boys o' your
age to go meddlin' wi' Severn, be for him
to step down to parson and tell un to offer
prayers for the two of you in church when
Sunday comes, for nothin' else '11 save ye!"

On that occasion we were certainly impressed ;
and no doubt John meant us so to be. But
chancing, some ten days later, to be down
along the river banks, I remember we were
as much startled to find a solitary boat lying
there, as Crusoe must have been when he first
detected the footsteps of the man Friday in
the sands. The effect on us both was the
same : we had never seen boat there before,
and the sudden appearance of this craft filled
us with a kind of fear. She was just a large-
sized dinghy, recently tarred, had a white streak

D

50 AINSLIE GORE

below the gunwale, and was fixed to the shore
by a chain painter and a long rope.

It was the time of spring tides and a bright
and sunny day. Green ripples kissed the
boat's sides ; there was not more than four
inches of water beneath the keel at the stern ;
and she was only just aground at the bows.
Of course we were not long before we were
inside that boat. We had approached with
caution, doubting if anyone was on board, and
finding no one, shortly began meddling with
matters we had better have left alone. First,
we separated the painter from the rope ; then
we got her more afloat ; and after that the tide
took charge.

I can remember now with what rapidity the
shores appeared to recede from us, and also
the exclamations that escaped us when we
found that the pair of oars the boat contained
were securely padlocked to the after thwart.
Ainslie was quite calm and began whistling a
favourite tune, posing rather as captain of the
craft, and expressing the opinion that very
likely the current that had taken us out would
work in a circle and take us back again. But
the flat shore receded farther and farther from
us, and it shortly became evident that we were
outward bound.

HIS HOME, FORBEARS, AND BOYHOOD 51

On realising this, the first thing that Ainslie
ordered was for one of the bottom boards to
be lifted. With this we tried to paddle, and at
least to keep the boat's head pointing one way.
Needless to say our efforts were quite fruitless,
and we followed such course as the tide per-
mitted, broadside on. As the stream took us
farther, our pace naturally increased ; but now
and again as we sped on we noticed that the
water gradually grew deeper, though we knew
enough to realise that the short ripple farther
out meant shallows, and that these, the variable
sands off Frampton Pill, were so-called quick-
sands.

I do not think our situation troubled us in
the least. Ainslie, for his part, appeared to be
thoroughly enjoying it, and kept singing to
himself as he looked down over the gunwale,
or cast his eyes westward to where crowds
of gulls were already settling on the point
of Frampton sands. Far off beyond these,
a ketch had dropped anchor in the variable
channel running between them and the Noose,
with other craft far beyond that and over to-
wards Brims. We made amazing way when
the currents carried us into the main channel
itself, and we must certainly have come a good
deal more than a mile and a half when all of

52 AINSLIE GORE

a sudden the boat checked and swung round,
as if some invisible hand had caught and was
holding her.

We had run on to a mud ledge, Ainslie's
first remark being "Come on; let's bathe!"
The mud bank was, for mud, sound enough ;
but on reaching the smooth inviting sands
themselves, he was very soon up to his knees.
Bathe, however, he would, on gaining firmer
ground, while I remained in the boat, that, by
degrees, fell slowly over on her side. There
was a mile of sand bare in no time, and the
cry of many gulls came from far and near.
The sun was sinking slowly into mist after a
brilliant May day, but it of course never struck
us that this very certainly meant fog. " The
tide will turn, later on," remarked Ainslie
" and take us back again ; it will be all right ! "
He was full of confidence and was putting on
his clothes, after finding a stretch of harder
ground where he could run for half a mile and
dry himself.

Everything out here was on a large scale.
There was space on these sands and on the
wide, eddying waters the very voices of the
gulls, far and near, declared it : there was space
in the cloudless sky overhead that was now
rapidly losing its blueness ; and there was

HIS HOME, FORBEARS, AND BOYHOOD 53

space, again, on the long sweep of level shore
over towards the Tumps and the great marshes
below Denton. Only one item in it all was
small, and small to minuteness our two selves,
and our newly tarred dinghy lying on its
side some hundreds of yards now from any
water.

Ainslie kept singing his favourite tunes. I
never saw him happier. The sands were dry-
ing, and we began amusing ourselves, after
the inconsequent fashion of boys, in searching
for things that the tide might possibly have
left behind. The light of the sun was slowly
waning ; and presently, on looking up, I re-
member remarking to Ainslie that the shore
had disappeared from view.

" By Jove ; so it has," he said " it's only
a fog, what larks ! Yes," he continued, a few
moments later, when we were following our
own footsteps back towards the boat "yes, I
expect they'll have a job to find us ; but John
will guess it, and he knows everything."

At that moment, and a little later when it
became dark, with the haze of fog overhead
lit by the rising moon, we certainly found
comfort in what we felt to be John Gratian's
omniscience ; and as Ainslie now remarked
if he had been often castaway and all the rest ;

54 AINSLIE GORE

but he had never seemed to come to grief
entirely." " Of course there'll be trouble over
this," he added presently " and I am sorry.
It can't be helped. It is all my fault, because,
you see, you are staying with me."

The logic might perhaps have been difficult
for others to follow, but I understood his mean-
ing, while I sat on the gunwale of the boat,
feeling bitterly cold and wondering if we were
to be there all night, or whether this last of
many escapades meant drowning ere the morn-
ing. The fog, shortly after that, shut down
on us somewhat thicker, and a light air sprung
up from the east. There was intense silence
everywhere ; the gulls had gone to bed, and
the water had receded far away.

" Listen, and count," said Ainslie, suddenly.
" Did you hear that ? Why, that's our church
clock at home, striking ten."

How long after that it was before help came
neither of us knew, for we were both asleep
when rough hands shook us into consciousness.
Two figures with lanterns stood over us ; and
one was swearing loudly, till stopped by John
Gratian's voice, crying " Dry up, I tell yer ;
bain't there been trouble enough over this job
a'ready ? Bain't the good Squire's lady pretty
well frightened into fits ; and the Squire hisself

HIS HOME, FORBEARS, AND BOYHOOD 55

gone up and all over to make a search inland ?
Bain't that enough, wi'out your a-temptin' th'
Almighty with all your gaff? Well, then, dry
up and leave the lads to me ! "

What happened then I do not quite know.
I learnt afterwards that the dinghy had be-
longed to the ketch we had seen, and that the
owner had come ashore to interview Gratian
about coals. On returning to the banks he
had found his boat gone, and being unable to
see anything of her anywhere, had made his
way back to the Gore Arms to acquaint honest
John of the fact. It was not till later that
news reached them of our disappearance, when
John had put two and two together without
more ado, and subsequently, by his close know-
ledge of Severn tides and currents, had hit off
our whereabouts exactly.

But one matter in that night's adventure
will always remain with me, and this has to
do with what happened on our reaching land
again. The fact that there were rarely any
boats down there had thrown the Squire off
the scent ; but he had stopped to ask news of
Gratian when driving back through the village,
and learnt from others where his friend had
gone.

It was already past eleven o'clock when the

56 AINSLIE GORE

Squire turned his horse to drive at once as far
as wheels would take him, and from there to
find his way on foot to the shore above the
Tumps. He was standing there alone when
we came ashore in the silvery fog and the
glint of the moon on the rippling water. He
never said anything, beyond " Come on, both
of you, as quick as you can ; " Ainslie putting
in, in penitent fashion " It was my fault,
father; it was all my fault."

Then there was silence. We had half a
mile to tramp to reach the trap, and during the
whole of the time the Squire never uttered a
word. " If he had only spoken," said Ainslie
to me, long afterwards, " it wouldn't have hurt
so much ; " and I remember that I felt the
same myself. It might have been unpleasant
to receive the reprimand he, above all others,
could administer when he felt wrong had been
done, though with never a bad word inter-
mixed. But in this case he was absolutely
silent both then and afterwards and I am
convinced of this, that this very silence on
his part went deeper home in my case, and I
believe in Ainslie's also, than any punishment
we in after days received as schoolboys.

I was driven home early the next morning
by our intimate friend, William Welfare, the

HIS HOME, FORBEARS, AND BOYHOOD 57

Gores' head coachman. He pulled a long face
when I came out to the door, and then whis-
pered as we started " Oh dear oh dear :
got into a mess this time, then, eh ? And this
note, look ye, have got to go with you, look.
Dear dear ; well, there ; you an' Master
Ainslie is just a pair, to be sure."

For some time after that Ainslie and I did
not see quite so much of one another. The
Squire adopted the plan of taking Ainslie
about himself wherever he went at Denton, and
thus began the training that shall be referred
to later on. It was, however, somewhat un-
fortunate that during the very first week of
their closer intercourse an event should have
occurred nearly costing Ainslie his life.

Some alterations were being carried out at
the Gore Arms ; the parlour being enlarged
and two bedrooms added above, much to John
Gratian's satisfaction. Something had gone
wrong at the top of the new gable, and the
Squire turned to Ainslie and said " Here ;
you can put that right. Run up that ladder,
only take care what you are about."

It was a good height up, and having attended
to the point, Ainslie stepped back, calling
"Is that right, father?" The next moment
he was in the air. He had trodden on a false

58 AINSLIE GORE

board at the top of the scaffolding, then in
course of being taken down. There was no
time even for an exclamation. Ainslie turned
two complete somersaults, and just before
reaching the flagstones of the yard, shot out
one arm and caught a rope-end, dropping on
to his feet and then falling backwards into
Gratian's arms.

" Well ! " exclaimed the honest John, who
had turned crimson in the face " there's odds
in boys, or I'm very much mistook! "

The Squire remained fixed to the spot where
he was standing, and was for the moment
speechless. But he quickly recovered himself,
and with the air of one so Ainslie said to
whom some personal injury had been done,
remarked " If you go on like this, my dear
boy, you will run through all your lives before
we can stop you : even a cat has only

nine."

To which Ainslie, when he had recovered
from his giddiness, replied " It was a funny
thing, father ; but you and Gratian looked as
if you were standing upside down ! "

"I don't wonder at it, I'm sure," returned
the Squire ; adding with a smile that looked
half guilty, half shy " I think, on the whole,
we had better say nothing about it to anyone :

HIS HOME, FORBEARS, AND BOYHOOD 59

your mother might wonder where it was all
going to stop."

Personally, I fancy that Ainslie must have
expended all his so-called lives before he reached
sixteen, the loss of his ninth being the nearest
total loss of all. I was not actually present
on this occasion, and the story shall presently
be told.

We were about together again when the
next summer holidays came round, having then
left our first school for good, with Eton for
both of us in the near future. At home and
at school Ainslie had latterly been developing
his taste for music, and, possibly owing to his
being now left more alone than heretofore, his
liking also for reading. He was often strum-
ming on the piano when I rode my pony over
to Denton, and occasionally, when he could not
at first be found, he was eventually discovered
curled in a big arm-chair and immersed in a
book in the great library.

When disturbed in this way he did not at once
rouse himself, appearing as if his mind was still
occupied by what he had been either reading or
trying to play. The house was large, and he
was often very solitary ; the lives of his parents
being so full that weeks would sometimes go
by without anyone coming to stay at Denton.

60 AINSLIE GORE

Personally, I think that to this must be largely
attributed much of the dreaminess there was
afterwards about him, his intense reserve and
love of solitude. He never lost any of his boyish
gaiety and love of life indeed, he never lost
a particle of these or of his geniality, his ready
manner and large-heartedness, to the end of his
days ; but gradually, and from this time on-
wards, I realise now that a certain seriousness
began slowly to declare itself in him, till it grew
to be a definite part of his character.

Such traits made no sort of difference to his
natural liking for an outdoor life, its sports and
games and touch with nature. He might lose
himself in a book, or in reading through some
new thing that his mother herself an excellent
pianist had recently discovered. But in the
next instant he would bang the lid of the piano
or fling down his book, and be climbing the
hill in the park or threading the rides of the
woods, to see if he could find Giles Merrett or
any of his under men.

It was no doubt on one of these strolls by
himself in the heart of the woods that he
marked a wood-pigeon's nest in an elder bush.
There had been an outcry against these birds,
and as to reach the nest in this case was
impossible, he quickly devised some other

HIS HOME, FORBEARS, AND BOYHOOD 61

means of attack. At that time, I recall, we
were spending, quite unknown to our elders, all
our spare cash in pistols and gunpowder, casting
our own bullets with lead we stripped from the
house gutters on the roof. It was a July day
when Ainslie ensconced himself beneath the
shade of that elder bush, vowing that he would
remain there till dark, and intent, as Merrett
subsequently remarked when he heard the
story " on blowing the old bird down, nest
and eggs and all an' a very good job if he
had, for them cushats be nothin' less than pests,
they be, and eats a power of our pheasants'
feed of a mornin', that 'em do."

The day was a sultry one, and the watch
was long. By way of passing time, Ainslie
had begun playing with the pistol, when, as
he afterwards described it to me, " the beastly
thing suddenly went off, the bullet going
straight through the brim of my hat in front
of my forehead. I can tell you," he added,
"that when I could see, I got up and left
that pigeon's nest to itself, feeling cold all
over. Of course what you say is quite true.
They might have taken days to find the
body ; and when they did they would have
found it stark, with a pistol in its hand.
Nice business! "

62 AINSLIE GORE

" They would have brought it in as suicide
for a certainty," I remarked.

" Yes," he returned, with a loud laugh

" A dozen men sat on his corpse,

To find out how he died
And they buried Ben in the four cross-roads
With a stake in his inside."

I think he said his father had latterly been
reading Hood's poems to him, and that he had
committed some of these to memory.

The following month we left for Eton, at-
tended by our respective fathers both old
Etonians, who appeared to regard the occasion
as one for much hilarity and many reminiscences.

As for ourselves, we knew that an immense
world was about to open before us and that of
this we were to form a part, and I think we
were immeasurably proud of the fact. Look-
ing back now, we seem on that day to have
passed one of those milestones in life that we
all do from time to time, and that make us feel
suddenly older. We were not yet quite four-
teen, but we were already, in outlook, older by
a year than we had been when we left our
private school two months before. Childhood
was left finally behind, and boyhood had come
to occupy its place, with an increasing liking
for wildly foolish boyish escapades of all kinds,

HIS HOME, FORBEARS, AND BOYHOOD 63

though these now took on a different colour and
were marked by different characteristics.

There was at no time any sign on Ainslie's
part of loss of the love of adventure, more
especially where a spice of danger was discern-
ible. Whether at school or at home he was
always ready for anything, remaining quick
and alert on all occasions, and throwing his
whole heart into everything he found to do.
But at the same time the dreaminess that I
had latterly remarked in him seemed now to
become more noticeable. He slowly developed
a keen love of the beautiful : his liking for
music, that was afterwards so much a part of
him, became a passion ; he took more and
more to reading whenever he could get the
time ; and by degrees became in many ways
an idealist, just as, later, he also grew to be,
and remained always, something of a mystic.
This development went on in him, I think,
very slowly at first ; but the quiet and beauty
of his home, as also, in some ways, his Eton
life, served now to accentuate it.

He was already a boy of exceptional ability.
His school work had from the first come easily
to him ; and on entering Eton, he was placed
as high as was then possible taking, as we
say, Remove. At the outset, the throb of the

64 AINSLIE GORE

new life here puzzled him : there was so much
to do ; so little time to do it in. The very
rush of the day's work an hour here, another
there, with the games, the cooking one's own
tea and breakfast, all the quaint observances,
sandwiched in between ; the fagging and the
strange phraseology of the place ; the rule of
boy over boy ; the incessant call to be up and
doing something all day long, in this place of
beautiful buildings set amidst still more beauti-
ful surroundings all this, no doubt, bewildered
him, as it had done countless others, and at
first he liked to get away alone along the banks
of the river in the Playing Fields, where they
were deserted at this football season of the
year.

The phase with him did not last long. A
wise enactment allowed a new boy to wander
much as he liked for the first fortnight, that
he might find his way about ere the fagging
and the rest began. But many days before
this short period had expired, Ainslie had
already been caught by the countless eddies of
this great stream of young life, and carried
bodily out into its midst. More than that : he
quickly discerned the meaning of what he saw
around him, and threw his whole heart and
soul into the affairs of every day.

HIS HOME, FORBEARS, AND BOYHOOD 65

The whole atmosphere and surroundings of
this wonderful place appealed to him ; and
Eton, exercising her countless fascinations,
took him by the hand and made of him one
of her true sons. He knew it, and often after-
wards referred to it. The stream would flow
on, at ever-increasing pace there would come
the banks and the shallows and the shifting
sands ; but here was good outfit to be had for
each one's craft. And more there reigned
also a great spirit in this place, and to all who
came it was bequeathed, that they might, so
choosing, carry it with them out into the wide
estuary and the full flood, for their voyage on
a limitless sea.

E

CHAPTER III

ETON DAYS

WE were resting on Sheep's Bridge when he
said it one summer Sunday evening, when
the life of the greatest of Schools was in full
swing and the summer half at its zenith.
Sunday necessarily always brought a pause in
those activities of the week that seemed to us
then to be nothing less than the contests of
giants, fit to move whole worlds. To some
minds possibly they appear so still ; but how-
ever this may be, Sunday afforded an interval
for thought, if also for much gossip as to
who, for instance, would get his colours for
Lord's, who fill the last remaining thwart in
the Eight for Henley; what House had the
best chance of winning the House Cup or the
House Fours, and who were the likeliest to
carry off the Sculling or the Pulling and the
rest of the many great events.

These were the things that really mattered
to the majority in that busy world ; and if
training and practice were suspended one day

66

ETON DAYS 67

in seven, it was only fitting, in the leisure
hours thus afforded, that such matters should
be discussed and estimates revised. On the
morrow the contests would reopen and the
play of energies be renewed the whole wide
stream of life, with its chances and infinite
possibilities, being laid out and burnished
anew : for the moment, all the boats of many
forms were locked in the Brocas sheds, and a
hushed stillness reigned in our historic Playing
Fields.

We had been discussing many such things
as we strolled, and were at the moment lean-
ing over the old, worn stone-coping of the
bridge, watching the clear brown water from
Fellows' Pond as it trickled over the stone
ledge below and found its way in many
rivulets to the wide and silent river in the
fuller light beyond the trees. Trees, indeed,
stood on all hands. Huge elms met high
above our heads : away to the left, three
broad avenues separated Upper from Middle
Club, and in the opposite direction, some
dozen giants, two or more centuries in age,
brought the pageant to an end standing as
great sentinels on the margin of Aquatics and
Upper Sixpenny, or over against the famous
Wall, casting now their faint shadows on the

68 AINSLIE GORE

soft, short turf as the long summer day drew
slowly to a close.

" Yes," he said " I have quite made up my
mind to be a soldier. The Army is the place.
There is nothing like it, as you say nothing !
Perhaps the love of it is born in us. We have
been soldiers for generations, just like your
people. My father was a soldier, you know,
and so was my grandfather the one fought in
the Crimea and the other in the Peninsula.
But it goes back much further than that, for
among the portraits at home there are many
more, especially one of a fair-haired fellow who
looks not much older than us, and who fell at
Newbury, fighting for the King. It must have
been painted, they say, very shortly before his
death. He is attractive enough in his gay
clothes, I can tell you ; with his fair locks on
his shoulders and his dark eyes full of fun.
But of course you know the picture I forgot.
Doesn't his face take you ? It does me. And
I often stop and look at it, and feel that I envy
him awfully. Shouldn't I just about have
liked to have lived then ! "

His voice, even at that date, was singularly
musical and of low tone, and as he dilated in
boyish fashion and we discussed the course in
life we would mutually take, it seemed to grow

ETON DAYS 69

in richness, the tinkle of the stream below
filling in the pause between the sentences.
He was habitually possessed, as I have said,
of a certain seriousness even in his boyhood,
though the real depth of this was seldom
shown, save to his intimates. Thus it was
that the majority never suspected any trait of
the kind. He might be all that some said he
was reserved, modest, retiring, thoughtful ;
but he hid such things successfully away, and
what those about him saw was one possessed
of intense joyousness of life who was vigour
personified, and who regarded all things from
a sunny outlook.

The bells in Lupton's Tower had chimed
the hour and then struck eight on one of
deeper tone ere we moved away that evening
from the bridge the ancient brick walls ahead
of us glowing blood-red in the level rays of the
sun, the golden light scintillating in the lat-
tice of many a window. Silence had already
settled on those Playing Fields of wondrous
beauty by the time we turned into the cool
cloisters and emerged into School Yard, our
conversation still running on the same theme
this line we were to take in life, this pledge
that we had given each other to follow the

yo AINSLIE GORE

calling of our respective forbears, lead where
it might.

The weighty decision we had come to ap-
peared in some mysterious way to have sud-
denly deepened our outlook on life : the world
for us had altered from that moment. We
were to be together, right through to serve
the greatest of Queens living up in the Castle
that dominated the whole peaceful valley,
and if need be lay down our lives for her and
for the Country. It was all very romantic ;
but all, to us, in our boyish fancies, very real.

At this time he and I were just sixteen, an
age when scales are apt to fall from boyish
eyes and foothold to be looked for with increas-
ing earnestness. The future occasionally pre-
sents itself at such an hour with startling
suddenness, as something to be reckoned with
and definitely faced. It had done so now
with us. Previous to this its claims had been
few, and there was something wholly intangible
about it : it lay outside our province altogether,
and need not concern us seriously in any way.
But now, many roads had begun to show them-
selves, leading away into the distance, and from
these came the sound of many voices calling
always " Come along ! "

In the babel of sound it is not easy to decide

ETON DAYS 71

which of all these voices is to be listened to.
Fear moreover has its place. Up to this, cer-
tainties had been the lot of nearly the whole
company : out there, uncertainty had now be-
come apparent. And from the distance had
come also this strange call ringing in the ears
the call of the world as the call of the wild ;
this appeal to the instincts ; this claim upon
the next batch of young lives that shall fight
and struggle, and love and pray, carrying on
the work of the world till the next call comes
and a long sleep closes wistful eyes. Uncon-
sciously the great appeal continues always to
exert its influence ; consciously it accepts neither
hesitation nor denial ; and thus it comes about
that the children of men obey the summons,
and step out into life as soldiers in the army
of God.

From that day forward our decision was
never altogether absent from our minds. Not
that we often spoke of it or put our thoughts
into words, but we certainly set our course with
the aims we had in view. I remember, for
instance, that we agreed together never, either
at school or in the holidays, to shun exposure
to weather, but rather to invite it, wet or shine,
night or day. So also with bodily exertion
the harder the work, the more readily we were

72 AINSLIE GORE

to engage in it. If any of those about us
appeared to hang back we were to spring
forward without hesitation, and the more risky
the job the better. What we had to do was to
make ourselves physically fit by every means
in our power, and at the same time learn how
to take the lead. And over and above this, we
were to try to acquire the habit of bearing pain
without flinching, to cultivate the spirit of en-
durance, to be chivalrous on all occasions, to
show least what we felt most. The day would
come when a claim would be made on us ; we
must get into training therefore and be pre-
pared.

Thus, while we laid down for ourselves a
rule of life, and our boyish fancies continued to
conjure up a multitude of things that came
more and more to be stern realities to us, a
number of ideals were also always before our
minds. And especially was this so in Ainslie's
case. All through his life it was only necessary
for him to espouse a cause, for that cause to
become idealised. He would weave about it
all manner of fancies, and clothe it in garments
of colours unknown to human eyes ; and when,
in his imagination, it had become transfigured
often to a degree that he never appeared to
realise he, metaphorically speaking, set this

ETON DAYS 73

idol of his creation on a pedestal and gave
himself to it heart and soul.

It was the same with him in more serious
matters. His faith, his standard of morals
of cleanness, truth and honesty his idea of
what a man should be at all points and in all
ways, his sense of duty of what was right and,
above all, what was just ; all these were to him
the essentials of existence. In defence of them
he must be prepared to fight and to give his all,
if called upon so to do ; and in each case the
level of his keen desires stood far higher than
that which human fallibility makes ordinarily
possible.

Nor was it by any means different in the cur-
rent of his school life. No matter whether it
was an eleven in which he had won a place,
a society to which he had been elected, the
House whereat he boarded, this School of which
he was a member these were all alike either
the best, or to become the best so far as he
could help in his small way to make them.
They were first and before all his, and they
invariably stood in his mind as so many symbols.

Thus behind the elevens to which he be-
longed or those contests in which he con-
tinually took part, he had visions of fights of
sterner .kind that would some day come for

74 AINSLIE GORE

him in other fields ; and this great School that
he so passionately loved, never failed to present
to his mind the counterpart of that life in the
wider world that would shortly open for him
and for each and all in this great company.

The past history of the place was to him
therefore an inspiration and was constantly in
his mind. He re-peopled it with the great of
bygone times, conjuring up anew the forms
of leaders in the field, statesmen and divines
of poets, writers and musicians, no less than
that host of humbler men, " the unknown
great," as he habitually called them, who had
trod these very flagstones, whose voices had
echoed here, and who had then gone out and
tried to make some corner of the world a
better, happier place, so long as life were
granted them.

The very beauty of its setting appealed to
him to an almost measureless extent ; and its
spirit the spirit of Eton however undefin-
able, was to him a priceless heritage, to be
fostered and safeguarded by each and all ; not
as a matter of mere sentiment, but as some-
thing rarely found elsewhere, and that was
limitless for good the world over. He could
not shut his eyes to the darker faults he saw
about him. But if such were part of an in-

ETON DAYS 75

explicable whole, he never failed to try to
stamp them out wherever met with. To him
good and evil necessarily had place here as in
the world outside. But with the intensity of
faith that was his, he never ceased to believe
that purity would declare herself as the hand-
maid of the one, and that beauty was there to
redeem and to clothe the other anew. Thus
of the ultimate triumph of good he never
entertained a doubt.

" My dear fellow," he would say, with that
sunny smile of his his eyes growing darker
as he spoke " don't you see that good is
bound to win because it is so infinitely the
more powerful of the two ? To doubt that,
for an instant, seems to me to try to make out
that Almighty God is less powerful than the
Author of all Evil. There are plenty of
things outside to shame us, and there are
plenty here to show that we are no better than
others and have no right to pretend to be so.
But no one is going to make me doubt that
the influences we have about us in this place
are not going to assert themselves and make
for a wider, purer regeneration. I tell you it
is impossible ! There are black sheep among
us, of course. It could not be otherwise with
a thousand of us packed together here. But

76 AINSLIE GORE

just think how much blacker the blackest
would in all likelihood have been if he had
never been here at all ! "

The ultimate victory of any cause he had at
heart seemed sometimes to mean everything
to him ; but in the athletic contests of the day,
victory the mere fact of winning did not
appear ever to appeal to him in the way that
it did to most. If success in a great annual
match meant further honour for his School, or
securing a challenge cup meant the same for
his already famous House, it stood to reason
that they must be won. But I think, as a
rule, he derived his chief pleasure from the
actual contest rather than from the, possibly,
victorious outcome. He trained his House
elevens for success, and to the very utmost
of his power ; but he also taught them first
to play the game, and to accept defeat with
dignity. " Play for your side," he would say
" don't play for yourself that's poor form ;
and if we are beaten, take the licking with a
good grace, and say nothing."

He always carried into every contest, no
matter what it was, a firm belief in his own
side. That he was often beaten, goes without
saying. But when his idol on such occasions
necessarily came tumbling to the ground with

ETON DAYS 77

a run and he reaped the fruits of all idealists,
he might look grave, or even break into a
laugh ; but he at once set his idol up again on
a firmer and higher pedestal, and marched on,
head up as before.

At the date when he and I, on that summer
Sunday evening, laid down the course we
would mutually take in life, we were entering
upon the period when athletic honours in school
life are reaped to the full if reaped at all. In
his first summer half he had chosen the river
and showed signs of becoming a wet-bob ; but
unlike many another boy who, once on the
river, is content to drift along with the stream
and often in aimless fashion, he altered his
course before the half had run out.

The river had appealed to him in the first
instance by its beauty its whispering willows,
its nodding rushes that the circling eddies
played with all day long, the wealth of flowers
along the banks, with the great, historic Castle
in the sunlight backing in the whole. This
river, with its clear depths and its placid stream
that never varied very greatly throughout the
heart of the year, differed altogether from
the river of his home. He had never seen

78 AINSLIE GORE

anything like it before. Here there was the
beauty of a pretty face. Away in the west,
the river was stern and sombre of aspect, with
a strength underlying it that took no denial
and that punished tricks, that linked hands
directly with the mighty tides, and spoke in
deep notes with the voice of a man.

The pretty face had conquered Ainslie at
the outset ; but it failed to hold him, however
great its charms might be to a nature such as
his. At first he was enthusiastic. " The river,"
he would exclaim " the river is splendid !
They say it's the cradle here of the finest
oarsmen in England, you know, and therefore
in the world. Just think of that ! "

Then slowly there came a change, and at
the same time an inner appeal for a wider field
for his energies. Paddling up and down this
stream, with no prospect of a place in the
Boats for a year or two, failed to satisfy him.
Contemplation, when tucked in under the pol-
lards while the hours ran by, or lying in
the sun beneath a hedge of willow herb and
purple loosestrife six feet high, had much that
was congenial to him, just as the beauty of
this pretty face made mute appeal to his heart.
But there was the other side in him that claimed
no less a hearing, and that was destined to

ETON DAYS 79

speak out more strongly with the coming of
the years, when the man of action should have
sprung to life.

In his home he had always been an enthusi-
astic cricketer, taking his part with the village
team in many a funny match, in which the
originality of some of the members' favourite
strokes was only surpassed by the witticisms
and general hilarity of the company. He ar-
rived in my room one day during the latter
part of our first summer half with a new ball in
his hand, and asked me to come with him to
Sixpenny. Then he habitually went to Upper
Club to watch the great School matches, taking
note of everything he saw, his whole being
rising to a pitch of enthusiasm at the skill of
a bowler, a dash in of cover-point and a pretty
piece of fielding, a hit that took the ball clear
out of the ground.

There was beauty, even greater beauty, here
in these great round-topped trees, with their
purple shadows and broad spaces of reflected
sunlight, the level turf, the old red walls and
the sound of the bells. It was different alto-
gether from what that other had afforded and
that was still visible with silvery gleam beneath
the trees, and it told him a different story.
The pretty face had had to make way for

8o AINSLIE GORE

something more stately and of deeper import.
There was more of continual vigour here : the
whole air was filled with the sound of bat and
ball, shrill cries and boyish voices, and was
redolent of life and utmost joy of living. And
thus by slow degrees, other arms wound their
way about him, and this other, statelier beauty
led him by the hand. The Brocas saw him
no more, and at the same time a new bowler
was discovered in Sixpenny.

He never forsook his first love altogether.
He always took part in his Form's sweepstakes,
and certainly on one occasion won them in
company with another. He even in later years
raised a dry-bob Four in his House to compete
in the bumping races, and as he said "just
for the sport of the thing." " No idea of
getting to the top of the river need trouble
us," he added. " The fun will be to row against
these wet-bobs, even though we get a good
ducking, probably have to stand some chaff,
and no doubt come in a good last. Anyway,
we must have a try, and the river is always
lovely ! "

It was never his way to do things by halves,
and he threw himself more and more into
cricket throughout his Eton life, winning in
the end those colours that were, to many here s

ETON DAYS 81

more than any title, rank or decoration in the
world. And after his manner he also built up
in his own mind all kinds of mystical ideas
about this greatest of games, till it became in
a way one of his standards. Cricket, to him,
stood for a claim for straightness of conduct on
all occasions, just as a straight bat was of its
essence. " A fellow has got to abide by the
rules/' he would say, "stand his ground and
defend his own wicket ; and what is more, he
has also to abide by his sentence from the
other end, whatever it be, just in the same way
that he has by his own actions in a wider field
if he makes a fool of himself, or by his word
if he has once said dixi!" And then again,
over and above all this, he always believed that
cricket had played no mean part in making a
Nation, and here the history of this game was
to him nothing less than a romance.

It is not my intention to set out in this place
his doings either as a field, a bat or a bowler.
He had his successes in playing for his School,
at Lord's and Winchester and elsewhere ; but
such things are written in other books, and do
not loom so large now for us in these later
days. One thing, however, in connection with
his getting his colours shall be mentioned,
because it shows how his actions sometimes

F

82 AINSLIE GORE

caused him to be misunderstood by those who
did not know him well.

To be given your colours for the Eleven, or,
as the custom was in those days, to be told
"you might get your colours," was to run
down town and to appear in them an hour
later, no less than to order " flannels " at your
tailor's to be put in hand at once. But Ainslie
never did anything quite like ordinary people,
the result being that he was still wearing his
twenty-two colours the next day, and his tailor
had come to the conclusion that he had lost his
custom.

To be guilty of action of the kind in such a
company as this was to run the risk of hostile
criticism, and some were not behindhand in
putting Ainslie's remissness down to swagger,
further uncomplimentary remarks being added
at the same time. He was, of course, wholly
innocent of all the things attributed to him,
and when several of his friends pointed out
that his forgetfulness might be taken as an
insult, he ran at once to the Captain's House
and apologised to him profusely.

The matter was, I know, a genuine distress
to him, though what he had done, or forgotten
to do, exactly reflected his character. To his
mind, had he given the point any thought

ETON DAYS 83

whatever, haste to appear in new colours, even
if these were the first in the School, would not
have appealed in any way : he had won his
place in the Eleven, and would appear as he
should in the next match a few days hence :
that, to his thinking, was quite sufficient. It
was always the same with him. When he had
done anything and earned the plaudits of his
fellows, his first desire was to escape from
notice as quickly as he could. To pose, or to
play to the gallery, would have been an im-
possibility with him : he was at all points essen-
tially a gentleman, and would consequently have
dubbed such doings as so much snobbishness.

In the half succeeding that in which he be-
came a member of the Eleven, he won his
colours for the Field and the Oppidan Wall.
Football, especially the Field game, suited him
even better than cricket : he loved the actual
combat, the fever of the fight, and the test of
physical strength. No prettier game was ever
devised for boys than Eton football. It is
very quick and calls for agility of foot, great
activity, plenty of dash and pluck, together
with full command of temper and rapid decision
at every moment. Ainslie excelled in it for
many reasons, and being a first-rate runner his
place was generally corner.

84 AINSLIE GORE

Character declares itself in all games, and
Ainslie's came out here. His play was at all
times without trace of jealousy, and showed
how fully aware he was that individual promi-
nence and success were of less value to a side
than unselfish combination. Whether in the
Field, or in House games in South Meadow
where he trained us carefully as Captain he
threw himself heart and soul into the crisis of
the moment, and I can hear his ringing voice
still, and see his tall, lissom figure capless,
breathless and mud-bespattered often leading
us to victory when defeat seemed perilously
imminent.

But there was another direction in which at
this time he also began to make his mark.
His successes in the field of athletics had
necessarily led to his being elected to Pop
the august assembly that has for generations
represented in its select and limited company
the elite and most distinguished in the School.
He was ever independent in his opinions and
actions, and if this led, as has been shown, to
his being sometimes misunderstood outside,
and often through his own fault, it was no less
so within the doors of the Eton Society. There
was a certain quiet detachment about him that
provoked criticism in other natures. He did

ETON DAYS 85

not hesitate to say what he meant on all occa-
sions not in any spirit of wrong-headedness,
much less of bumptiousness, but because he
had formed those opinions to the best of his
ability and was resolved to stand by them. At
all times he had the strongest sense of justice,
and in the event of a course taken by another
being obviously wrong he spoke out totally
regardless of the cost, and no matter who his
opponent might be. It was always the same
with him, even in his younger days, and I re-
member two small incidents of the kind occur-
ring when he had been at the School no more
than a year.

As a Lower Boy he had stood at the head
of Remove, his name being the second to be
called at Absence. It was thus necessary for
him to be extremely punctual. On arriving in
School Yard one day he found his name had
been passed, and that the Lower Master w r as
already some dozen down the list. At the
second calling over came the question, before
the inevitable pcena " Why were you not
here?" "Because you began calling before
the time, Sir." " Impertinence ! " exclaimed
the Master, warmly. " I beg your pardon,
Sir ; the clock had not struck when you
began," returned Ainslie again, looking up with

86 AINSLIE GORE

that irresistible smile of his as a boy. The
statement was so absolutely honest that the
Master was defeated " You may go," he said,
with scant grace.

The other incident had to do with our dear
old Tutor. Ainslie was never an adept at
Latin prose writing ; he never mastered the
knack of it, and as it was a test subject in all
examinations, it was necessary that he should
pay especial attention to it. I forget now what
the point was ; but our Tutor became quite
cross with him at what he called his "extra-
ordinary denseness." Ainslie, who had been
resting his forehead on the palm of one hand,
with the fingers in his hair, looked up and
asked " Why are you cross with me, Sir ? I
can assure you I am trying my very best."

Our Tutor recalled the incident in conversa-
tion with me many years afterwards, and added
" I learnt a lesson then that I never forgot.
The boy's face was enough, without his words.
I felt ashamed of myself. But there was
always something remarkable about Gore, and
towards the close of that wonderfully successful
career of his at the School, it often seemed to
me that a mysterious influence for good flowed
from his every act."

Though the Eton Society, better known as

ETON DAYS 87

Pop, is in a way a club, it is primarily a
debating society, at least two Prime Ministers
having made their first flights in oratory there
as boys, and many a score of distinguished
names appearing on the records of its pro-
ceedings. To become a member is to inherit
no ordinary traditions ; and since Pop is also
a kind of court of reference and holds cer-
tain disciplinary powers, these elected few have
a very definite position in the School.

The tone and atmosphere of its rooms
naturally varied according to our leaders at
the moment. Members came and went in
quick succession, as this great stream of young
life launched its members out into the breezy
tide-way. Eton is always marked by a ready
wit, and a no less ready power of repartee.
There was plenty of such in Pop, and if, out-
side, its members walked with dignity more or
less assumed, these historic little rooms were
often the scene of uproarious mirth, together
with much banter, when boyish spirits asserted
themselves and a staid decorum was judged to
be no longer supportable.

But while such conditions undoubtedly ruled
from time to time, and even Pop bowed to the
powers that were and followed the reigning
spirits of the day, debates were nevertheless

88 AINSLIE GORE

often conducted with due formality, the manners
and customs of another place being followed
somewhat closely. To look through the
volumes of its proceedings now, especially
where great names figure the speeches being
recorded in the handwriting of the speakers
is to be struck by the level often reached
in these debates of bygone days. The
opinions that some held then may be the
very opposite of those advanced in public
now ; but the ability exhibited in their pre-
sentment does not differ as greatly as many
might suppose.

The members were by no means only
athletes ; there were also scholars and students
of many subjects, whose hearts were far from
games. Apart from the wit, the fun and the
merry laughter that marked so many of our
days, dialectics formed the common atmos-
phere of these rooms, considerable heat being
often engendered when the members took
sides and the current topics of the day were
discussed. In the case of formal debates,
speeches were often prepared with great care,
and delivered to an attentive audience. Apt
quotations, especially from the classics, were re-
ceived with a smile of approval ; and if cheers
greeted the close of a popular speaker's perora-

ETON DAYS 89

tion, opinions at variance with the accepted
traditions of the School always raised a storm
of interruption.

No doubt our proceedings were often marked
by boyish exuberance of spirits, no less than
by that cocksureness that was a part of all of
us when in our 'teens. It would have been
strange had this not been so. Youth, with
gay heart, always knows better than the man ;
and the middle-aged may be dismissed, by way
of compliment, as " has beens," or even some-
thing still less graceful. That no doubt, for all
reasons, is as it should be. At the same time,
looking back now, I am unable to recall any
of that disagreeable form of cocksureness in
Ainslie Gore that we have all known. His
opinions were never lightly surrendered. It
used indeed to be said of him at this time that
if he once got an idea in his head, he would
stick to it, right or wrong. That was going
much too far. He was difficult to move and
could not be driven ; but he was at all times
open to conviction, and there was never any
trace of bumptiousness in the way he advanced
his theories or drove home his points. I often
used to think that he regarded a debate or an
argument much as he did a game, and that he
carried it on for its own sake, though always

90 AINSLIE GORE

deprecating descent into mere contentious talk :
of that he had a horror.

Occasions of course arose here when the
questions before us were taken very seriously
comically so considering we were all boys.
Nothing moved us more than any attack upon
our existing institutions. We were for the
most part strong Tories and staunch upholders
of things as they were. And it was just here
that Ainslie sometimes came into conflict with
the majority. He was a reformer, and was
therefore a firebrand to some, and he had
little respect for anything that, to his think-
ing, had had its day and was obsolete.

No one ever loved this great School more
than he ; no one respected its past history
more deeply ; no boy in the place would have
fought more valiantly in defence of a custom
where he felt that it was really beneficial ; and
no one, assuredly, realised more fully that hands
were not to be lightly laid on this place of
countless memories. But where, in this re-
public of boys, he fancied he discerned what
was undesirable no longer suited to the day
that had come, or in conformity with the
world outside then he sprang forward and
spoke his mind, though the whole School
should be against him.

ETON DAYS 91

Such characteristics were naturally more
noticeable in Pop than elsewhere, and it was
here that he had to do battle in support of
his ideals. When he felt anything keenly he
habitually spoke with much vehemence and
made use of many gestures ; but when
especially in the earlier days of his member-
ship he was received with marked opposition
and the ordinary courtesies of debate were
thrown to the winds, he never lost control of
himself or showed the slightest signs of temper
in the retorts he made. Nor was there ever
anything overbearing in his manner. That
the opinions he was advancing might leave
him in the minority of one when put to the
vote, did not concern him. He was not going
to give way when he felt he was right, unless
a better man than he was there to convince
him that he was wrong. Then, he was open to
conviction and gave way with excellent grace.
With him tenacity of purpose was a thing to
be cultivated ; but such should never be carried
to the point where due reverence for the
opinions of others was excluded. And he
certainly grew to feel this more and more
in subsequent years, when the atmosphere of
radiant confidence was exchanged for a sterner

92 AINSLIE GORE

reality, and impulsive adolescence was checked
at the touch of the world.

Opposition, then, he occasionally met with
here ; but many will agree that the unfailing
good-humour and charm of manner with which
he habitually faced that opposition, won the
ever-increasing respect of those from whom he
differed most, and the affection of many who
could not altogether agree with him. I shall
never forget one occasion when he rose to
wind up a debate on a question to do with the
better maintenance of discipline in Houses as
carried out by the boys themselves, and the
changes that were desirable in furtherance of
the same. He won some round to his point
of view before he had done, and the debate
was adjourned instead of being brought to a
conclusion.

The room had been in an uproar ; and when,
in the course of his remarks, he had made
reflections upon the want of tone in certain
quarters, every member appeared to be inter-
rupting him at once. He remained standing,
with a grave, thoughtful look on his face, wait-
ing patiently for silence to be restored.

" I am sorry," he said, at last, in a voice
that seemed to have fallen to an even lower
tone than usual " I am sorry if the reforms

ETON DAYS 93

I am myself anxious to see carried out do not
commend themselves to many of you. Yet
I do not believe that any member here present,
and however deeply he may be opposed to
me, will question my motives or doubt the
deep love I have for all our institutions. These
last belong to a past that we revere. For the
time they are in our keeping. They reflect
the deeds and opinions of others who were in
all likelihood better men than ourselves. But
conditions have changed and there is a demand
for something different, as there must always
be. Are we going to stultify ourselves by
making no move where we see that reform is
needed and, as I believe, urgently needed?
Are we going to confess our own impotence
by failing to rise to a call that some at least
here believe to be a very real one ? If so,
how may we hope to reconcile our want of
initiative with the actions of those of whom I
have just spoken and who worked to make
this place what it has ultimately become.
Many of you may think of the individual rights
pertaining to your several high positions in the
School ; but I trust you will pardon the
temerity of one of the younger members of
this assembly, if I ask you whether you are
going to think of your rights and forget your

94 AINSLIE GORE

duties ? I tell you, Gentlemen, that nothing
stands firm that stands on rights alone no-
thing can ever so stand ! Our several Houses
are but part of a greater whole. If the tone
of any of them falls from what it should be, is
there anyone here prepared to deny that the
School itself can hope to escape infection ?
Once again, I tell you that that cannot be so,
and that we ourselves shall have to bear the
blame ! "

" We may not agree with all Gore says,"
remarked one of a group of boys, strolling out
of the yard into the roadway, with their hands
in their pockets ; " but from fighting him, one
somehow or other gets to love him, and his
opinions don't seem to matter a bit."

" I know exactly what you mean," agreed
another. " I expect he'll be Prime Minister
one day, won't he ? "

" Bless your life, no ! " interjected a third
" don't you know he's going for a soldier ?
He is always dreaming of it, I tell you."

"Ainslie ? Food for powder ? Save us!"

The very idea seemed to take the last
speaker quite aback.

During his last year and a half at the School

ETON DAYS 95

he gradually rose to a position that can have
been reached by few. He had a hand in
everything, from cricket and football and fives,
to the Volunteers in which he rose to be a
sergeant, and the Beagles of which he was a
whip and at one time acted as Master during
the latter's illness. He was known to all. The
small boys looked at him with awe : those a
little older were flattered when he noticed them :
his contemporaries were proud to be included
in the circle of his friends. Not that he was
the least exclusive. Among his friends and
acquaintances boys were to be found of per-
fectly different natures and every standard of
ability. The very diversity of his tastes com-
pelled him to be cosmopolitan in such direc-
tions. He was large-hearted and unwittingly
attracted others to himself, and thus he was
able to find what he wanted in each in turn,
being amused by some and gathering sympathy
from others.

He could, at this time, meet many of those
with whom he was thrown on their own ground,
no matter what their interests and pursuits
might be. He became one of the greatest
athletes in the School ; but he was an athlete
in spite of himself. He could play all games
just a little better than the majority. He ran

96 AINSLIE GORE

so well that he won the School Mile and the
Steeplechase, and he habitually threw such
vigour into all he did that it was not pleasant,
for instance, to oppose him in a run down at
football. He would rush down the ground
then, with the ball close between his feet
calling to his side with clear, ringing voice to
back up and come on and finally break out
into a shout of boisterous merriment when he
had carried it between the posts and not seldom
the discomfited goalkeeper with it. He ap-
peared to be muscle all over ; every muscle
seemed on such occasions to be working, and
very hard some of us found them when we did
not happen to be playing on his side.

I have said that he was a great athlete. He
was something more, and I always thought he
showed this in a marked way on the day he
won the School Steeplechase the blue ribbon
of all our athletic events. The morning was
wet and the ground was heavy, the course
being from the Sanatorium field to Eton Wick,
then to the Butts, on to the second railway
bridge, across by Willow Brook, to the time-
honoured School Jump over Chalvey a dis-
tance of about three miles.

Some of us accompanied the runners in the
race that day, cutting across from point to

ETON DAYS 97

point. Five boys were more or less together
in the leading group when the last fence was
cleared, one of whom was Ainslie. The School
Jump lay two hundred yards ahead, with the
winning-post some thirty yards beyond it. A
vast concourse of boys there thronged both
banks of the stream, and shouts were already
being raised for this or that favourite.

Two of the five had fallen back half-way
across the last field, and Ainslie was only three
yards behind the leader. They reached School
Jump together, and scrambled out of the water
together, amidst the deafening shouts of the on-
lookers. They were neck and neck for the first
ten of those crucial thirty yards : then Ainslie
shot ahead and won by only a short distance. It
had been one of the finest races that had ever
been run over the course, and he had fairly
won it ; but the very first thing he did and he
was a year and more younger than the boy he
had just beaten was to go and look for this
last in the cheering crowd, out of breath as
he was, and say to him, quickly " It was as
much your race as mine, really." Then he
escaped as soon as he could, and we returned
to my Dame's together.

The day happened to be a half-holiday, and
I founc} him jn his room that afternoon, absorbed

98 AINSLIE GORE

in a volume of the Elizabethan poets, as if still
wishing to keep out of the way.

He looked up when I entered, and said as
he rose from his chair and began pacing the
floor " Here ; read that read that! Isn't it
fine?" Then he repeated the first two and
last two lines from a stanza of a lyric of
Shirley

" The garlands wither on your brow.

Then boast no more your mighty deeds !

Only the actions of the just

Smell sweet and blossom in their dust.

Or this," he continued, snatching the book
from my hand " this Integer Vita of Thomas
Campion. Here it is, look

" The man of life upright,

Whose guiltless heart is free
From all dishonest deeds,
Or thought of vanity . . ."

The poetry he had been reading seemed to
have set his mind on fire, and presently when
I put the book down, he burst out with

" Come on ; let's go up to St. George's.
There is plenty of time ; the service isn't till
four. It will cool us down."

A quarter of an hour later we were entering
the Chapel from the cloisters,. It had been our

ETON DAYS 99

habit during all our Eton days to go there on
short after fours from time to time. For one

thing, the organist, Sir , was an intimate

friend of Ainslie's, taking great interest in his
love for music, and indeed, I believe, being
never absent from the School concerts when
Ainslie was playing or singing at those popular
entertainments. It was through this friend that
Ainslie's love of Bach had originated, and there
was little doubt what the closing voluntary
would be when he was up in the organ-loft.

We had only to take our stand at the narrow
doorway opening on to the flight of stone steps
in the wall leading up into this last, and our
place for the service was assured. The old
man merely gave us a nod as he unlocked the
door that day, taking it for granted what we
were there for.

There were sometimes one and sometimes
two assistants present, to pull out the stops and
learn what they might, by watching the doings
of one who was said then to be the finest
accompanist of the Psalms ever known.
Ainslie would take his place either at the
back of the player, or at the small kneeling-
desk on the left, looking down on to the floor
of the Chapel the banners of the Knights
of the Garter just above his head, the in-

ioo AINSLIE GORE

tense silence only broken by a deep-toned
bell, apparently far away ; by the footsteps
of those few who attended the service as they
passed up the nave, or the careless shutting
of a door.

In the enclosed choir itself, the silence was
the silence of the grave, the dim religious light
being that of many candles ; the thousand
brasses that covered the back of the old oak
stalls catching a gleam now and again, and al-
ways with those emblazoned Knights' banners
overhead to tell their story. There is no
place quite like that in the world, and it was
never without its effect upon us as boys, speak-
ing to Ainslie especially, I think, by reason of
the beautiful refinement on every hand, the
subdued colouring and general richness, and
the wide space of National history that is there
enshrined.

The Psalms for the day included the 78th,
and Ainslie's face was lit with delight when

Sir never missed an opportunity, verse by

verse, and [a whole volume of sound went
travelling along the groined roof to find echo
in a hundred arches. I saw the old man bend
down to the boy from his seat as the Grace
was being said, and fancied I heard Ainslie
whisper "Yes, play the great G minor"

ETON DAYS 101

The next moment the service was over and
the subject of the fugue broke the silence :

-i M I I i i F"^ i i

He scarcely spoke all the way home that
day ; but I could hear him humming the sub-
ject again and again to himself as we walked
back in the drizzle and the dusk that November
afternoon. At last he exclaimed, in boyish
fashion " That kind of thing will give us a
leg up when the great day comes ; you mark
my words ! Of course the recollection of that
Chapel we shall carry to the end of our lives
it is heavenly. But I was thinking of the
music : what couldn't one do to such sounds
as those!"

He appeared to have quite forgotten that he
had that day won the oldest and greatest of
all the athletic events of the School, and never
even referred to it. But as we turned down
Keate's Lane, I heard one small boy say to
another " Look, there goes Ainslie."

Everyone knew him ; yet it is given to few

102 AINSLIE GORE

to be known by their Christian names alone,
and throughout a School of a thousand boys.

The days of youth were drawing to an
end, and the summer half had come round for
the last time for both of us. Three months
hence would see us boys no longer in the true
sense : the gay life of this place, with its colour
and its song, would be at an end : Eton would
have left its ineffaceable impress upon us, and we
should have to go out, to begin at the bottom
again, to clamber if we might in search always
of those ideals that the majority have glimmer
of, and that lie in the mists of the blue hills,
or away in the depths of purer heavens over-
head.

No doubts as to the margin of time that
would be ours had, so far, ever crossed the
mind. Life was assured long life ; and all
things were attainable. It was only necessary
to step out to the sound of the drum, and there
would follow victory ; to be followed in the
end, of course, by peace. That last came for
all : for the moment there was life, with eyes
still undimmed, heart whole, strength that
knew not tiredness, and soul unstained.

Ainslie's position in the School equalled if

ETON DAYS 103

it did not excel that of anyone here by reason
of the record that lay behind. He also stood
high in school work, and in his last half was
one of the ten Oppidans in Sixth Form. His
attainments were above the average, and the
work he turned out was always good ; but I
question whether a classical curriculum was the
one best suited to him. His tastes lay primarily
in English Literature. He was fond of history
and studied that of other countries besides his
own. Military history had especial attractions
for him, as has been said, and often in winter
evenings when we should, perhaps, have been
otherwise occupied, we would fight the battles
of the Peninsular War over again, and he
would sometimes repeat by heart Napier's
famous page on the close of the great day of
Albuera.

The Life of the Duke of Wellington and
the story of Waterloo also engaged us, though,
for many reasons, the History of the Crimean
War was our greatest favourite. Kinglake's
first volumes had appeared, and we read and
re-read these, together with a much worn copy
of Russell's Letters. He would often lament
the fact that our proper studies were for the
most part wholly classical. " I love Horace,"
he would say " and also Virgil, and you and

104 AINSLIE GORE

I can follow with delight many a page in
Thucydides, and laugh at the wit in the Plays.
All the same, I do wish we had more of what
is called elsewhere the Modern Side, and that
they would occasionally teach us something
different and let these verses and iambics drop
out a bit."

He certainly always tried to remedy such
conditions in his own case, and spent all the
time he could snatch in reading the standard
works of his own Country, both in the House
library and also during the holidays. His
memory was a very retentive one. He had no
difficulty in learning by heart, and when once
he had made a passage his own or any lines
that took his fancy he never forgot them.

His favourites among the poets were Milton,
Shelley, Keats, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Brown-
ing, with others of his own day, and he loved the
sonnets and the lyrics of writers of earlier times
and could repeat many of them. By this means
he was often ready with a quotation that exactly
fitted what he was talking about at the moment.
Being no prig he seldom indulged in this habit
unless alone with a personal friend ; but now
and then he would repeat a verse or two of
Hood's Faithless Nelly Gray, Thackeray's
Chronicle of the Drum, or some remark of

ETON DAYS 105

Sam Weller's or of Mr. Pickwick's, going into
shouts of laughter at the thoughts they brought
to his mind, and making others laugh by his
mimicry.

He always possessed the keenest sense of
fun, gathering amusement everywhere and
seeing the funny side in everything that crossed
his path. At the same time he would occa-
sionally pass from grave to gay in a moment,
as if the serious side that was always a part of
him had got the upper hand. Certainly during
our last half he often struck me as graver than
he had been, though ready as ever to join in
any fun that was to the fore. For the rest, his
position now entailed much responsibility and
a good deal of power, and I know that he
felt this, and that it was necessary for him to
study his actions very closely. It did not weigh
on him. He acted no part. He was just him-
self at all times, and never anything but per-
fectly natural. But he measured his words
more carefully, became far more moderate in
the opinions he advanced in Pop, and without
knowing it acquired a certain dignity. He had
in fact gone to the top. Unconsciously he set
a standard, and, as is always the case with
leaders of men, he had the power of bringing
out the very best in his subordinates.

io6 AINSLIE GORE

Yet in this School, renowned for turning out
leaders, I do not think he ever realised that
he was now actually a leader himself, much less
what a leader he was. His numberless suc-
cesses had left him the most simple-minded
being amongst us. It was characteristic of
him, for instance, that though one or two cups
necessarily stood on his mantelpiece, none of
his many colours adorned the walls of his room.
He disliked show of any kind, and also con-
demned all forms of adulation. Feelings of
all sorts, however genuine, were to be re-
strained. What mattered first of all to him
was the honour of his School : his own personal
doings were insignificant in his eyes, and were
certainly not to be talked about. He went
his way among us quite unspoilt, and in that
expressive phrase of Tacitus, " enjoyed the
felicity of success with fortitude."

During the five and a half years that he
had spent here, he had, of course, gradually
developed in mind and character very greatly ;
but he had also, by the strenuousness of his
athletic training, brought his body to perfection.
Physically he would have been dubbed by his
schoolfellows " a fine specimen." And so he
was. He was of large frame, though loose
knit. He stood now a little under six foot

ETON DAYS 107

in height, and held his head high and some-
what back as he passed along at a slinging
walk. In a sense he was certainly good-
looking ; but it was his whole carriage, apart
from his fine features, his ruddy, sun-tanned
complexion, fair hair and laughing, grey eyes,
that captivated us masters and boys alike.

Our Tutor just hit it off, I think, in a letter
to me afterwards long afterwards and which
I have kept with a few others :

" I used sometimes to think of him in my
own mind as a kind of Charmides," he writes.
" Even we Masters seemed, in Plato's phrase,
1 to be enamoured of him.' But I must give
you the whole passage, though no doubt you
remember it. Here it is, in Jowett's words,
not mine ' That grown men like ourselves
should have been affected in this way is not
surprising, but I observed that there was the
same feeling among the boys : all of them,
down to the very least child, turned and looked
at him as if he had been a statue.' Isn't that
true, now ? dear fellow that he always was ! "

There is never an hour to spare in an Eton
summer half. Life runs at full tide. The
Fourth of June, the Winchester match, Henley,

io8 AINSLIE GORE

Lord's, Bisley are the chief milestones ; and
in between them, every furlong is marked by
some event the pageantry of the Boats, the
Sculling, the Pulling, Trial Eights, the House
Fours, and many another contest on the river ;
and in the Playing Fields, the weekly School
matches, the strenuous doings of all the Clubs,
with the House Cup again to finish up the
whole. With the work of the School that
curious collection of snippets and short hours
all these must be carried on as well. There
must be no pause. Everything must be fitted
in to a nicety, and on all sides it is ordained
that there shall be never-ending competition.

Young hearts beat high, and the warm blood
of youth rushes up and is full of hope. It
is only the ne'er-do-weels that are without
aim here. Even the smallest of the company
is possessed of some minute ideal when the
days are long, just as those who are older
have theirs when the margin ahead grows
short. To be one of eight ; to be one of
eleven, and this in a company of a thousand !
The odds against full success are heavy.
But the atmosphere here is full of radiant
confidence, and young minds sail in on the
top of the tide with the sweet fresh breeze
behind them, knowing nothing of haphazard,

ETON DAYS 109

and caring less, may be, as to who shall be
crowned as king of them all. Let there be
a good fight for place and an honourable one,
and then the world here shall crown whom
it will, if now and again with the same
clumsiness and apparent irresponsibility that
the world outside too often shows.

There had been nothing haphazard in Ainslie
Gore's crowning, and he had certainly not
come to his own by chance. A natural aptitude
had helped him very largely, and nature had
favoured him in many ways ; yet it was mainly
by his own personality that he had really won
the position he now occupied, and stood as
one of the half-dozen real leaders in the place.
The sense of responsibility was putting finish-
ing touches to his youthful character all through
this last half. This was still the growing time ;
the full flowering would come anon, and how
fair that would be, those picked men who stood
over us liked among themselves to contemplate.

"He is certainly not afraid of anything or
anybody," said one of these last in my hearing,
watching him batting steadily in Upper Club
in a match against the M.C.C.

" Afraid ? I should just think not ! Do you
remember the story that went the rounds last
football half of how he tackled Rogers, who

no AINSLIE GORE

was then at his Dame's and in the Eight. He
had been told that Rogers wore shin pads, or
whatever they are called just fancy! Well,
Gore went up to him and said ' We don't
come here to save our shins but to fight for
the House, and I'll swear you shan't play for
us again if I hear of you wearing things like
that in any game in the place.' '

"Ah, but that was nothing to the way in
which he took that unfortunate decision of our
colleague, Arkwright," returned another Master,
sitting in the next chair. " That struck me as
grand, for it amounted to hideous provocation.
Weren't you there? Well, Gore had set his
heart on winning the Cup once more for his
Dame's before he left, and they were a long
way the best eleven. Someone got in the way,
they said, and Arkwright didn't see it, and
gave a goal after Leslie had touched the ball
with his hands. It was quite wrong, as every-
body at that end of the ground agreed : the
other side were actually standing still, so sure
of it were they. A more mortifying thing
could not have happened ; and time was called
before the position could be retrieved. The
others kept kicking it out. But I never saw
a finer test of character in my life. Gore never
said a word. He bore the test well, and his

ETON DAYS in

eleven followed his example. The fickle god-
dess had deserted them. Laudo manentem : si
celeres quatit pennas . . . We all know the
stanza."

"Yes," said another "I remember. But
those House matches are always the most ex-
citing sport in the world ; the spirit of rivalry
runs higher then than in any other contest of
the year."

" There goes another four ! " exclaimed the
previous speaker "and very nearly into Fel-
lows' Pond." There was clapping of hands
all round the ground. " I hope he'll do that
next week : it will be his last match there.
Leaving yes."

" More's the pity ; but he'll go to the top
wherever he is," remarked the other. "He's
bound to succeed with a character like his."

The following week Ainslie contributed his
share at Lord's in winning the match against
Harrow, his last hit for his School, a very fine
one to square leg, striking the walls of the
racket courts. Three weeks later the day
before the half ended he had the further satis-
faction of winning the House Cup for his
Dame's, and mainly by his bowling. I believe
that gave him as much pleasure as anything.

We walked home that evening, taking our

ii2 AINSLIE GORE

way through the cloisters, as we had done a
thousand times in the past five years. I do
not think it struck either of us that it was the
last time we should do so. As we crossed
School Yard, I remember saying something
about this final success for him. He only
looked towards me and smiled, saying nothing.
But I fancy the remark set his mind running
on the past, and that he was tracing back his
career.

Only those who have loved Eton know what
it is to leave Eton. And if this means that
all know because all have love, there are de-
grees here as elsewhere. For an affectionate,
warm-hearted disposition such as Ainslie's, the
close of his Eton days was nothing less than
a matter of poignant grief. Close intercourse
with him had already taught me to divine his
thoughts with tolerable accuracy, and being
conscious now of what was making him so
silent, I ventured some further remark about
his career and what he had to look back upon.
I do not think he would have allowed anyone
else to say as much ; but he took it from me
in the way it was meant.

" Don't let's talk more of that," he said,
nudging me with his elbow, after his manner,
and turning to look up at the great clock in

ETON DAYS 113

Lupton's Tower, whose golden figures were
catching the last of the sunlight " don't let's
talk of that ! " Then he added, half to himself,
as we went out on to the open road from under
the archway : " In less than twelve hours I
shall be nobody."

H

CHAPTER IV
FATHER AND SON

AINSLIE GORE'S education during those five and
a half happy years at Eton had not been con-
fined to what books might give, but as with
other boys in other schools the world over,
had been gathered all the while from many
sources. His Eton training had taught him,
for instance, what it was to exercise authority
among his fellows, and through this he had
learnt the meaning of a greater self-control. It
had shown him, no less, the pitfalls lying open
for all leaders, and at the same time how, by
his own individual actions, he might pass these
by in safety. Of responsibility, and what that
might often entail, he had seen much ; and
above all, had come to him what honour really
meant the points of conduct that it held up to
view ; the common path it never failed to show,
no matter what the calling in the wider world
the sacrifice that it at any moment might lay
claim to. These and many another lesson he
had learnt, and the invisible hand of his alma

FATHER AND SON 115

mater here had taken pains to graft each into
his heart and soul.

And while he was thus perfecting his equip-
ment, often unconsciously, for eight months
out of every twelve, a further education of
quite another order was progressing no less
strenuously elsewhere. Each was in reality
the complement of the other, and each was
equally designed to fit him for the place he
would ultimately occupy in life. In other
words, while Eton was busy turning him out
as one of her true sons, his father in his home,
with characteristic far-sightedness, was teach-
ing him all the hidden secrets of the land and
the wider responsibilities that would some day
come for him.

Such things might, as in that other case, be
gatherable from books, and only gatherable
there ; but there were countless others also that
no printed book could ever teach. Contact
with them from the earliest days, followed
always by closer insight as the years ran on,
was the only way in which they could become
part of a man's own self. The air of the fields,
the winds that came out of the heavens, the
voices to be heard in the great woods, scarcely
audible or altogether inarticulate as they might
be, were the sources from which they would

n6 AINSLIE GORE

ultimately spring. There were untold mysteries
here, some of which no one could hope to
fathom altogether ; yet at the same time there
were others lying within each man's grasp
that the land itself would yield, and the folk
living on the land would give up, to those who
came with open heart to learn.

I have no doubt whatever in my own mind
that the Squire realised all this to the full. He
told me as much later on in my life, and more-
over I recall many a walk with him and Ainslie
when he happened to be engaged upon estate
matters, and the pains he took to answer our
questions. He would always encourage us to
come, wherever he might be going, and seemed
to delight in having us with him ; and he never
sought to improve the occasion for our special
benefit.

Sometimes he would impart his information
in the form of a joke, and at others ask us
what we thought concerning some point that
was under discussion between him and his
estate steward.

" Now then, you two boys," he would say
" what are we to do about this ? Purcell says
he must have this big cow-ground divided into
three fields for convenience of pasturage ; where
are the fences to run ; and where are the

FATHER AND SON 117

gates and the watering-places to be ? Not quite
so easy to say, is it ? " Then he would add :
14 Yes, that would do, or wouldn't do," generally
ending up in a way that showed that in his
own mind he had grasped the position ex-
actly.

In the first instance, his motive in all this
had no doubt been to make an end of some
of our boyish doings. They were becoming
dangerous, and more than once had nearly
brought disaster. But after a while he appeared
to grow more and more anxious to put as
much practical knowledge in Ainslie's way as
was possible, and to teach him the things he
ought certainly to know. This only son of
his would one day succeed him, and would
then have to face difficulties that confronted
him now continually himself, and in ways that
they had never done before.

The outlook on the land was changing, and
there were ample signs that dark days lay
ahead for all out here. Prices were falling
more and more rapidly ; competition grew
yearly more acute ; and it looked as if the
farmer was going to be undercut in every
quarter. Even the seasons seemed to be
against him, and in the wind and the rain
and the rotting crops, sounds were to be

n8 AINSLIE GORE

heard to which the countryside had long been
strange.

Men of all classes were growing increasingly
anxious, and were asking themselves what was
coming next. Good gold was sunk in this
soil, and the rains were washing it away
beyond recovery. There were many here of
strength and skill and long experience who
went toiling on in the old spirit was their
field of labour to become the playground of
forces that they could not comprehend ? They
might well ask ; there was room for some
bewilderment in all they saw about them. They
were men for the most part of grand heart ;
but such conditions as these were enough to
break the stoutest. Some might stand against
the adverse flood for a time, being financially
stronger; but there were others, in plenty,
who had their all laid out in this very soil,
and who, by hook or crook, were just keeping
their lips above the water. Were these to go
under altogether, as scores were doing else-
where, and in this very County ?

All alike were threatened. The fight had
begun some years before ; it was evidently
to be a stiff one. There were three partners
in all that had to be done in these fields,
Were they going to stand together, or go

FATHER AND SON 119

apart ? Everything must ultimately depend on
that. Some would fall, as in other fights, and
their places be no longer known their very
names blotted out; others must obviously be
crippled for life, and none could hope to come
out quite unscathed.

The war must be fought through, somehow
that was very certain. And these men against
whom it was primarily waged were just the
class to fight it. In the case of two of the
partners out of the three, their whole lives
were a fight when viewed from their separate
standpoints. The third must come to their
aid still further, make even more strenuous
sacrifice than hitherto, and help to fight the
battle that way. All were agreed on that
point. Taken together and regarded imparti-
ally this partnership that could not be dissolved,
was not, apparently, to be brought to ruin and
crushed without an honest struggle. There
was fight in these men.

But however this might be, here was stern
reality that had to be met. Old systems must
go to the wall ; old tools that had had their
day must be cast on the scrap-heap ; brains
must work where hands had done the most
before ; the economist and the scientist must
be called in to aid ; the State must no longer

120 AINSLIE GORE

ignore the oldest of its industries ; there must
be a further general lowering of rent, and
relief in other forms ; more capital must some-
how be procured. Such were the cries to be
heard on all sides at this date.

No one who walked the land, then, is likely
to forget those years, or the picture that they
left upon the mind. For the rest, there stood
out this not in all quarters, but in many
a lasting example of British stubbornness.
There were few signs anywhere of giv-
ing in.

Among those out here was one class
especially with whom hope was a main factor
always. In these fields, under this open sky,
was never any certainty never could be.
They had followed a calling that had been
bred in them for generations. They were
accustomed to chuck their money into the soil
and hope to Heaven for a yield. They left
their capital to walk over the pastures as
stock, or to feed in the folds as sheep, and
hoped that with due care on their part, the
elements would surfer all those mouths to get
their fill. They laid out their money in newest
machinery, and hoped by these means to
reduce expenditure. And then they looked
to the markets, and hoped again for a margin

FATHER AND SON 121

there, that should leave them and theirs at
least a living. They wanted all their hope
now. They were attacked on all sides ; but
in the majority of instances, the same qualities
never seemed to fail them, proving once more
the old truth, that hope will stay by a man
when he has nothing else.

Just here, on these two adjacent properties,
no real tragedies occurred no auction or
selling up, with the turning of the back on
what had been the home for years and
perhaps for a good reason. The strain re-
mained, year in year out, perilously near the
breaking-point for some ; yet these men never
seemed to know when they were beaten.
" The next season would put matters right " ;
the next season was wet again. " Lost the main
of our hay, and very unfort'nate, too ; but keep
be plentiful on the lower meadows, and should
it come a fairly open winter we shall carry
through " ; that winter there was not a reen
on the meadows that was not frozen hard.
" Got a nice piece of wheat in the furlong
nice length of straw to it and a fine head, if
we can get it in " ; there came one August
night a storm that left that crop, by morning,
as though a steam-roller had been over it.
Such were the remarks, and too often the

122 AINSLIE GORE

outcome, in this corner of England. I can
but write the things I know.

There was little change as the time went
on ; and what there was seemed always for
the worse, as the seventies' ran out and the
eighties' brought no relief whatever. With
the price of wheat at fifty shillings or " stand-
ing in the fifties'," as they called it here there
had been a chance ; but now it had long left
the fifties' for the forties', and in '83 had bid
these last a final good-bye. Even the thirties'
did not hold for long ; and then followed the
twenties', with scarcely a break for years.
Barley and oats told a no better tale, till at
length it became well-nigh impossible to culti-
vate the ground and make a profit.

High farming, some said, might do better;
but where was high farming when it touched
these clays ; and where was the money ? The
cry became general for cheaper methods. The
land should go down to grass, and the plough
should be left to rust behind the barn or under
the hedge, its day being, seemingly, for the
most part done. The labour bill must be
reduced, and rents still further ; there must be
relief in rates. There was no living like this !
In some cases these men were growing angry ;
in others bitter. But still, until ruin, out and

FATHER AND SON 123

out, stared them in the face, and credit at last
became exhausted, grumble, and grumble loudly
as many did, the vast majority went doggedly
on and always without losing hope.

Such a picture is not easily forgotten.
There is, in truth, good reason for remember-
ing it, and first because, in other form, it is still
before the eyes. The Gores of Denton, like
many another family, were dependent upon
the land for the greater part of their income.
The estate, with those wide stretches down by
the Severn, the marsh lands, and the great
woods that reached up the hills behind the
park, comprised altogether over 5000 acres,
some of the land being very good and very
little of it poor. Much of the pasturage was
fairly rich, and if some of the ploughing was
stiff soil, it suited wheat well, and on the lighter
lands grew some useful roots, while there was
no want of good orcharding on any of the
holdings. If a man could farm at a profit
anywhere, he could do so here, more especially
when the lowness of the rents was considered.
And when bad times came he knew, moreover,
where to look for some relief.

" Ther' bain't an ordinary held o' market

124 AINSLIE GORE

days leastways, where I do 'tend myself
wher' that ain't general knowledge," remarked
Farmer Drew, when this last point was re-
ferred to at the table of "The Top Boot" one
Saturday. He had farmed under the Gores,
as he termed it, all his life, and his father
before him ; and what was more, he had a
stalwart son who looked to follow him, " when
the time did come for him to put his spoon
in the wall hisself." 1 He was one of the old-
fashioned sort ; wore box-cloth leggings with
brass buttons, and his hair was white and
somewhat long beneath his broad-brimmed,
black felt hat.

" And that be just wher' it do come in," he
continued. " They be gentlemen, every smite
of 'em, and been so always. You'll never see
a Gore profit by another's downfall : he'd a
long sight sooner be loser hisself. There be
the custom of the County, as we all do know ;
but, our way, ther' be, further, the custom of
the estate, and that don't never change a lot
wi' us. Ther' be only one thing as you've got
to minds go honest, and yer safe to be treated
fair ; try it on, and you be done. And I do
most cheerful maintain, that on our Squire's
estate, a man as farms as un should ah, and
1 To die.

FATHER AND SON 125

in the times as have come about us now can
go on farmin/ and get the lend of a helpin'
hand ay, and not be chucked out, like a so
much must-cake, when every drop have been
wrung through the hairs." 1

Farmer Drew sat at the head of the board
and was looked up to ; and as he talked,
tabbering his knuckles on the table, the 'com-
pany in his neighbourhood silently assented,
nodding their heads at the close of the old
man's remarks.

" Bringing his son up in the way he should
go, bain't he?" asked a farmer from a neigh-
bouring estate. " Pity as more doesn't do it.
Times be nashun bad, and if the young folks
of their class don't scawt about and larn as
they should, wher' be we goin' to be ? "

" That's right enough," returned Farmer
Drew ; " and that be just what our Squire be
doin'. I've eyed 'em a good bit of late, on my
place and about. Seems to be always together,
these days. And the lad's a-shapin' remarkable
well, I can tell ye."

" And can't he ride, too, and handle a
gun nice ? " put in another. " I see'd un out

1 " Must," or " mast," is the apple-cake after the crushed fruit
from the cider mill has been wrung through cloths made of
horsehair.

126 AINSLIE GORE

t'other day with his Lordship, a-goin' like
smoke, and as straight as you like. Take
summut to stop he when he come to be a bit
older, I reckons. Wonderful steady lad, they
says, and pleasant ways wi' un."

" That's so," returned Drew again " feature
his father remarkable, he do ; and I ain't no
chancer 1 when I says as our Squire means to
do all as is in his power to interest un in things
as he'll be handlin' when un's turn comes.
Nothin' dilladerry about our Squire, I can tell
ye ; and if this here lad, Mr. Ainslie, goes for a
bit o' soldiering, as they says he be, he'll do no
more than hisn's father a-done, and ihis gran'-
father a-done afore he, for that matter. It
never served either o' they any harm, so far as
I can hear say ; and like enough he'll come
back all the better for it. Does all folks good
to see a bit o' life, afore they comes to settle
down."

Farmer Drew's remarks were only those to
be heard at any time at Denton. The people
of the Manor had rejoiced at this boy's birth,
and watched him as he grew. They were
watching him still, and even closer than they
had done before, now that he was growing tall
and filling out. Many had already heard of
1 A teller of untruths, or one given to exaggerate.

FATHER AND SON 127

the mark he was making at his school, and
were proud of it, especially when they could
read his name " on the paper " ; or were told
"as he'd been playin' in a girt match in
Lunnun's town, wi' a sight of folks a-lookin'
on, so as they was black as flies upon the turf ;
and set round in thousands upon thousands,
they did," according to Susan Mantel's version
of the matter.

Among the young men and the boys, such
doings gave him a place at once, and when he
came home for the summer holidays and
attended church, many were watching for him
to enter with the rest of the choir, as was his
custom. He had always sung in the choir,
from the time he could read the Psalms, and
continued to do so now. He attended the
practices regularly at the village school ; and
often when the evening service on Sundays
was over, would take the organist's place and
play the concluding voluntary, while the church
slowly emptied and Josiah the sexton put the
candles out, one by one, and always with his
finger and thumb.

The instrument was a beautiful one, and
Ainslie would throw his whole self into what
he was playing, either by heart or out of his
head, till he seemed to lose all count of time,

128 AINSLIE GORE

and Dick Bond, the blower, " reckoned as the
young Squire was ther' to make game on
un."

On such occasions, this worthy would come
out of the organ chamber when silence had at
length fallen on the church, making much
parade of mopping his face with a large red
handkerchief. Ainslie would take stock of him
and smile, saying : " Blown, Dick ? Well,
come and blow for me to-morrow and we'll
make it right."

To which Dick, one of the Manor gardeners,
who lived rent free through filling this office,
would reply : " Well, ther' ; you do give it un
smartish, to be sure ! For my part, 'wever, I
do favour our Mr. Tracker ; he bain't so
des'pert random." Dick was a privileged
person, and had blown the organ for forty
years.

But it was among the members of the cricket
club that Ainslie was looked upon as a real
king. Twice a week he was down there in
the evening to coach the players at the net,
going without his dinner and taking as much
pains with the boys as the professionals did
with him at Eton. Often, too, before a match,
he might be seen trimming up the ground with
a machine, or pulling the roller for the greater

FATHER AND SON 129

part of the morning. " There is nothing on
this earth so funny as village cricket," he would
say " I simply love it."

Of course the club was very proud of their
captain, and took care to tell those who came
to play against them what they might expect.
"But see here," Bill Terrett, the second
captain, would remark " he hain't one to take
unfair advantage o' we. Like enough he'll
pertend as he's watty-handed 1 for the day, or
put hisself in wi' the tail. But see here again
yer'll never bowl un out when he minds to
be once in can't do it myself, wi'out it be now
and again upon times." Bill bowled underhand
at an amazing pace, delivering the ball when
both his feet were off the ground.

" And like enough, you'll see un lift the
barl right aboove the trees, yonder," added
another "and then anyun's got to foot it as
be in wi' un. He won't have no bounds here.
' Let's run 'em arl out,' he says ; ' ther' be
more sport in it.' And then away goes a slog
for six, and he do call 'Hern Bill hern! ' same
as it wus last Sat'day, till Bill, ther', did pitch
down right head foremost, poor wratch ! "

It was considered advisable to inspire the
Other ide with fear, so far as might be possible

1 Left-handed.

I

130 AINSLIE GORE

at Denton ; or as Sam Cook, a shepherd of
comical appearance and possessed of one eye,
would remark with a grin, before the play
began " 'Twas but only right and fair to give
'em an item of what they wus to see, arter a
start wer' made."

Nor was it very different when the long
winter evenings came. There must be con-
certs, and what these people liked best of all
" summut of actin V And when nothing of this
sort was going on, Ainslie turned the school
into a kind of working-men's club, where there
were newspapers, a bagatelle board, and other
games to be played, with a bright wood fire on
the hearth, and he himself there often enough
after a long and wet day with the hounds to
give all comers a welcome.

In what he did in these various directions,
he acted on the principle that as many as
possible should join in and take their part. If
a boy developed a good voice, he saw to it that
he joined the choir ; if man or boy had a taste
for cricket or football, let him join the clubs ;
and let those who could find the time, come
and look on and mix with the rest. " Never
mind the feeling of shyness : come forward and
sing a song and lend a hand in this village
entertainment, and make the evening happier,

FATHER AND SON 131

and yourself at the 'same time." That was
what he preached.

" What we have got to do," he said to me
once, "is to break down the stupid ideas that
are coming in, that for Mrs. Brown to be over
friendly with her neighbour Mrs. Jones, is for
Mrs. Brown to imperil her position. There is
only one way to do it, and that is to get folk to
mix together by every possible means. We were
never meant to stand apart from one another,
no matter who we are with this class thinking
themselves ever so much better than that, and
being quite nervous of even rubbing elbows.
Was there ever such snobbishness, when you
come to think of it ? No man need ever lose
a fraction of his position by anything of the
kind, unless he is a born fool. What we have
to do is to get to know each other better, and
we can only do that by seeing more of each
other."

He certainly practised what he preached.
He was welcomed by the poorest family in the
place, and felt at home among them. He could
go and sit in the parlour of his father's largest
tenant, and be no less at home with him and
the members of his family. He could go out
in the fields, and the men would receive him
there with a smile, knowing well that he could

132 AINSLIE GORE

follow their calling and talk their tongue, young
though he was. He was not yet nineteen and
still at Eton ; but he was already possessed of
tact and judgment in a marked degree, as well
as a certain quiet dignity of manner that was no
less friendly because it never invited familiarity.

He did not minimise the difficulties he met
with in carrying out his various schemes for the
happiness and welfare of the place. He knew
that such must be, and constantly went to the
Squire for advice.

"Making mistakes, are you? " this last would
say with a laugh " Well ; who doesn't that has
ever tried to do anything worth doing, I should
like to know ? And if they say they haven't
in their time, let them come out here and try
it. What you have got to remember is that,
to start with, you know nothing whatever about
the inner lives of any of these people ; and
that if you, placed as you are, live to be a
hundred, you will die knowing precious little
then ! Making mistakes ? of course you are.
You think you have offended Smith, and you
are quite sure you have rubbed Tom's nose
unwittingly across his face. So much the
better. You won't do it again, and Tom
and Smith will make it up.

" The more mistakes you make in learning

FATHER AND SON 133

the language here, the better for you. There
is not one man in a hundred can go out into
the fields and talk to those he meets there,
without putting his foot in it and making an
idiot of himself to a certainty. I've done it a
thousand times ; and come away, after showing
my own ignorance, feeling precious foolish, I
can tell you. And what you have to do, my
dear boy, is to do the same. You'll learn it
all in time, right enough : I am not afraid of
that!" The Squire took a long draw at his
pipe and chuckled to himself. He and Ainslie
were sitting together for half an hour before
going to bed, according to their invariable
custom.

The talk between them on these occasions
often ranged over a variety of subjects ; and
the Squire being one of those who appear to
be constitutionally unable to take anything
greatly to heart or very seriously, and certainly
not at eleven o'clock at night, father and son
could often be heard laughing together over
their reminiscences.

Living as close as I did, it was seldom that I
stayed at Denton when there was a large house
party. My parents would dine there and also
my sister and myself ; or I might be asked to
fill a place when an extra gun was wanted now

134 AINSLIE GORE

and then. Otherwise my visits were generally
confined to periods when father and mother
and son were there alone, and I thus came in
for many of those talks to which I have referred,
apart from what Ainslie sometimes told me of
them.

A mutual trust and confidence existed be-
tween the Squire and Ainslie that was delight-
ful to witness. To me, they often appeared to
be something more than father and son, their
intercourse being more that of two close, per-
sonal friends who hid nothing from each other,
reserved though they both were in their several
ways and differing greatly as they did in
temperament. Of the two, Ainslie perhaps
possessed the better brains, as he certainly
also found some of his pleasures in directions
that to his father were strange. But the
Squire, while above the average in general
capacity, possessed what was no less valuable
to him in his position a shrewd common sense
that was the outcome of a long experience and
the sterling qualities that were his by birth.

It would have been difficult to say which had
the greater affection for the other ; and if their
love differed in kind, as it naturally would, it
was never questioned because so perfectly
understood between the two. On the Squire's

FATHER AND SON 135

free days at home, and when Ainslie was there
for his holidays, they were more and more
together on the estate in these difficult years
discussing the new buildings necessitated by
the times, the repairs and alterations to cottages,
and all the hundred and one details that are
for ever wanting attention on the land. Few
things had ever escaped this Squire, and no-
thing did so now. He was here and there on
his estate as occasion required, ready always
with a helping hand and a quiet word of en-
couragement ; and with him, when at home,
was always his son.

They seemed to have become inseparable.
It was not only on the farm lands, or the land
the Squire kept in hand himself, that they were
often to be seen ; it was no uncommon thing for
them to be out in the woods together as the
seasons came round, arranging for new planting
in company with the steward, or visiting this
or that quarter that was due for its yield of
timber or coppice wood, and when the Squire,
armed with a pot of white paint, never failed
to give his son a lesson in tree-marking
which to spare and which to take, and the
reasons for doing both. They liked, too, in
their strolls together to watch this or that act
of husbandry hedging and ditching, thatching

136 AINSLIE GORE

and the work of the latest machine just as
they were to be seen with the keepers and
a friend or two, walking the stubbles and the
roots when September came, or disappearing
down the village lane on a wet and misty
morning for a meet of the hounds in the
vale.

And always on their return, from walk or
shoot or hunt, it was their common practice to
seek out that other one who made up the
home the lady with the beautiful face, as I
came to think of her Ainslie's mother ; tell
her what they had been doing and ask her
what she thought, either sitting together in the
garden in the last of the sunlight, or in front of
the wide hearth and the wood fire in the great
library, when winter winds were whistling out-
side, and the long night had shut down on the
world.

" What we have got to do," said the Squire
once, when I was returning with him and Ainslie
from a visit to an outlying part of the estate
"what we have got to do is to stand by the
farmers. I know things are going from bad
to worse on the one side, and that outlay is in-
creasing on the other. More and more land
is going down to grass every year, and that
often means that I have got to pay for the

FATHER AND SON 137

seed. And a pretty figure it comes to, draining,
pit digging and all. Then they find they have
no straw for thatching, or can't spare the little
they have, the price being Jos. a ton now. So
each one must have a French barn. I will
show you the bills for these things this evening,
Ainslie, on Bettle's farm alone barn ^147
the finest in the County; grass seed 116;
draining further bank field ^83. Might just
as well buy the land over again ! " The Squire
seemed amused at the idea.

" But it is getting almost too much of a joke,
though, isn't it?" he continued "especially
when our low rents have had to bear fifteen
and twenty per cent, rebates for years, and
with twenty-five, for certain, this year. Can't
be helped can't be helped ! Must fight it out
together somehow. There must come a change,
if we can only live to see it." Then, as though
wishing to leave the subject, he took Ainslie
by the arm, saying " Come along ; let's go
and look at the horses. May as well do so as
long as we have any ; seems as if the stables
were going to be clean emptied before long,
with you and I running with the hounds!"
And once again the squire broke into a laugh.

Economies were being practised at Denton
in many directions, and matters looked into in

138 AINSLIE GORE

ways that they had never been before. " People
always begin with their gardeners, when they
want to economise," remarked the Squire
one evening, when we were sitting together.
" Seems to me fairer to begin with the horses.
Very hard to throw these poor fellows out of
work ; besides, the gardens give no end of
pleasure to the village folk in summer time,
when they are open to them on Sundays. Next
season I have made up my mind to come down
to one horse I can hunt, with a pair for your
mother's driving work. Welfare won't like it
much ! It isn't as if it was going to be for
ever, though. Times have been bad before,
and they'll improve again. It's all nonsense
thinking otherwise."

" I shan't want a horse at all next season,"
said Ainslie " You see, if I leave at the end of
the summer half, I must go and work and get
ready for my exam."

" Nonsense, my dear boy," returned the
Squire " nonsense ! Part with Alice Grey ?
never ! Why, she cut out the work for the lot
of us last Tuesday, and carried you well. To
me it was a pretty sight. Might as well ask
me to part with Dan, there." Hearing his
name the dog got up, and went first to one
and then to the other, and then lay down again

FATHER AND SON 139

with a sigh. " He's part of the family ; and
so is the mare in a way. She has carried you
for five years now. Sell her ? not I ! Grass,
perhaps, in a year or two, and take it easy for
the rest of her days. Can't take money for
a favourite much less shoot my old friends
when I've done with them. Ah ! Alice Grey :
whatever happens, she will never die in debt,
as they say of a good horse at plough."

" No," said Ainslie " that she certainly will
never do." He was leaning forward and strok-
ing Dan, who had curled himself up in front
of the fire. " Nor this one," he added. Then
he asked " With us, I suppose, it is generally
our own fault if we do, isn't it ? "

"Generally, perhaps; not always," returned
the Squire. " A good many things may bring
it on a man ; but I always think the hardest
case is where it is shot on to him by his prede-
cessors. Just look at the Oakleys of Stock-
well. His father was reckoned a shrewd man ;
but when he died, it was found that he had
settled ever so many annuities on the property,
with the result that the present man, John
Oakley, has a job to keep his head above
water. People may say what they like about
his father being only able to judge of things as
he found them, and that it was impossible for

140 AINSLIE GORE

him to have foreseen what we are in for now.
I don't quite agree. He had lived long enough
on the land to know that there is never any
certainty here, in our climate. For owners,
no prizes and continual outgoings, letting alone
increasing taxation ; and for the farmers, fall-
ing markets and such things as bad seasons.
The very uncertainty of it all should have
been a warning to him, it seems to me. Never
put a penny on the property, my dear boy
never! You don't want to have a millstone
slung round your neck, and you have no right
to leave one for the necks of other people.
No property out here can stand such things in
these days. And the worst of it is that others
often feel the weight who are in no way re-
sponsible.

" Look at the Oakleys again. John is one
of the best-hearted fellows in the County. He
is sticking it out as well as he can, poor chap ;
but with all the will in the world, he can't help
his tenants, and they are going under. He
simply lives to fight debt debt, too, that he
never created : that's what he does. So much
of his land lies wet, you see, especially on his
meadows by the river. I don't expect you
know them, though you must have crossed
them out hunting without being aware of it.

FATHER AND SON 141

Yes over towards Bullpits, before you come
to the Horseshoe bend : near there. Well,
any rise in the river, and those meadows are
waterlogged, and then the tide does the rest."

"The last season must have been a bad one
for them, I should think," said Ainslie.

"Awful," returned the Squire "One of
the wettest years we have known for a long
while. Just look at ourselves. The hay lay
out till it was black and rotten, and I know
that ever so many acres of it were carted up
here to be used as thatching for the wood-
stacks. Some of it was not off the ground till
after you went back in September, and some
was still lying out in October. That was what
we had here, and a dead loss ; but farther up,
when the rains began and the river rose, the
men up that way were not troubled much with
the carting ; the tide did it for them, and away
went the lot to sea."

The Squire could not refrain from a low
laugh to himself even at that. It was his way
of taking things. He did not laugh because
he was without feeling and sympathy. No
man ever had warmer heart. Nor was there
anything of the empty laugh denoting the
vacant mind in this habit of his. There was
nothing of vacancy or nervousness about this

142 AINSLIE GORE

Squire. He had a supreme horror of the man
who whined, that was all ; and the sight of an
individual given to self-pity was the one thing
that ever made him really angry.

" For goodness sake, you two boys," he
would say "never whine and never cry out.
Drop it : it shows want of fight and is con-
temptible ! " He certainly acted up to the
standard himself, and when the outlook for
him and others grew worse when further
economies had to be practised, and the open
hospitality at Denton had to be almost entirely
given up he retained all his joviality, and
took in good heart the troubles and losses that
had emptied his stables and closed the greater
part of his house.

" I believe my father would continue to
accept things, outwardly, in the way he does,"
said Ainslie to me once "if he and my
mother were reduced to one room, and every
tenant gave notice. But I know the other
side, and how he feels it; and I begin to
wonder whether I ought to go into the Army
at all ; whether my place is not here, fighting
to keep the home together as he is doing,
and helping him all I know. Denton comes
first and before life itself with me ; in fact
the rest, no matter what it may be, is nowhere.

FATHER AND SON 143

And then, of late, a horrible idea has come
into my mind that he and my mother are
pinching themselves in my interests eventually.
He talks of doing away with the one horse
he has left for his hunting, and keeping one
other and a pony for my mother to get about
with. We used to have ten. Between them,
too, they have dismantled part of the rooms
and shut up half the place, as well as reduced
the establishment, though outside, and in
County matters, they go on working harder
than ever. And the worst part of the business
is that they are growing old and are doing
without things they have been accustomed to
all their lives. In fact, I believe the changes
up here are greater than in any farm-house on
the place. What do you think I ought to do ? "

" Stick to your guns," broke in a cheery, well-
known voice from the doorway " I don't know
what you two boys were talking about ; but
I couldn't help hearing the last question, and
my answer to that is when in doubt, do
that ! "

It happened that one day, shortly after this,
the Squire and I were alone together. Ainslie
had been due to stay with us for the inside
of the week, being now almost as much with
us as I had been hitherto at Denton. But

144 AINSLIE GORE

on the very day we had expected him he sent
a note to say he must give up the visit.
" Please tell your sister how sorry I am," he
had added at the end. The remark made
me smile. I don't think he would have written
that unless he had been very hurried.

The Squire was coming out of the front
door, when I rode over two days later. " Just
the boy I wanted to see," he exclaimed " Dear
me I'm afraid there is no one handy to take
your horse round for you. Take him round
yourself, like a good fellow. You'll find old
Welfare there. Ainslie has ridden his mare
over to Stockwell. I'll tell you all about it
in a minute : you'll find me in my room."

"Come along in, and sit yourself down,"
he said, when I entered. It was almost im-
possible for a face like his to look grave ; but
on this occasion his expression was certainly
graver than I had ever seen it. " I am sorry
to say Ainslie has dropped into rather a sad
affair over at Oakley's. I wouldn't have had
it happen for worlds. What his mother and
I always say we have to do is to make his
life as bright as we can. The days are de-
pressing enough for all of us ; but they must
not be made so for boys of your age, where
we can help it, I know Ainslie's mind is always

FATHER AND SON 145

dwelling on such things, and in his imaginative
way he thinks that Denton which he loves
better than his life, thank heaven ! is going
to come clattering down with a run, with family
bankruptcy to follow. We are not nearly done
yet, though, and are good for a considerable
number more rounds ! But what we have got
to do" and the Squire dropped his voice
" is to think, first, of the dear boy himself must
think of him at our age, of course, and bolster
him up for what he will have to face, when the
time arrives for him to stand here alone.

" Just fancy the other day he even hinted
at not going into the Army, and doubted if
he ought. Such nonsense ! Why, all Gores, or
nearly all of them, have always been soldiers ; and
after ten or twelve years' service, he will make
all the better squire, depend upon it. There
are few finer schools than a good regiment.

"Well, but I was going to tell you. It
happened on the night before last. He has
not told me a lot about it himself, and it is
just as well he shouldn't talk of it. The truth
is, I have seen very little of him, for he was
away early yesterday, and went off in the same
way to-day : he had to give evidence this
morning. However, I happened to meet Jim,
Nat Organ's brother, yesterday evening. He

K

146 AINSLIE GORE

lives over that way, you know, and he told me
all about it. It was a horrible affair ; but
Ainslie came out of it splendidly. I knew he
would, if it came to a pinch at any time. His
pluck is first class ; and at his age, when he
might be expected to lose his head, he just
gets as cool as you like."

" He never loses his head at Eton," I put
in "and we always say there, that the worse
things are, the more he's to the fore."

" I can quite believe that. But I must tell
you," continued the Squire. " On Friday the
hounds met at Stowell Crossroads, and had a
very poor day, till the scent improved with a
change of wind in the afternoon. They found
in Ackerman's Holt, and ran from there to
Hinksham woods. There they must have
changed, for they were out as soon as in, and
had a splendid five-mile point, right away to
the turn of the Horseshoe on Oakley's property
at Stockwell Court. Ainslie saw the whole of
it on the grey trust him and he told me that
it was just four o'clock when, in the end, they
marked the fox to the ground. He had eleven
miles to go in the dark, to get home from
there, with a cold rain falling and a fog
creeping up all over those meadows, so he
gruelled his horse at Oakley's before starting.

FATHER AND SON 147

" I dare say you know things have been
going badly in that part, and that John Oakley
is put to it to carry on. Bad job for him, and
his tenants too. Ever so many are all behind
with their rents, and two more farms have
recently been thrown on his hands. He has
done his level best and can't do more, and the
farmers know it. And they all know this, too,
that in these days it is no use trying to farm
under a poor landlord. They want his capital.

"Well, this is what I gathered from Jim
Organ, and I give it you pretty well in his
own words. It was a wet, dark night and
foggy, as I say ; and it seems that when Ainslie
was jogging down one of those lanes, that he
suddenly heard the sound of a shot in a dilapi-
dated barn close to the road ; and at the same
time someone coming towards him at a run.
It was the local shepherd, who called out

"'Hulloa, Mister! Don't know whom you
be ; but come on, there's trouble agate here. I
knows as sure as eggs is eggs what's come
about that's the maister, and he've done it
at last, spite of arl my watchin'. Been wrong
in his yod ; or goin' so, 'wever. The times have
upset un; but come you on, and lend a hand,
whoever you meut be.'

"Ainslie, it seems," added the Squire at this

148 AINSLIE GORE

point, " was off his horse in a moment, and
throwing the bridle over a gate post, followed
the man at once. There is no reason to go into
details ; but they found the poor fellow in the
barn, dead as a nail. Of course the shot had
brought others to the spot, and one ran up to
the house to break what had happened to the
wife. But I must continue the story as Jim
Organ told it me.

" * She did turn wonderful comical 1 for a
bit,' he said, in the usual quaint way of his
kind. ' She'd been half dunny afore, wi' arl
the trouble as had come about. The man wus
broke. Kept a-fighting on, yer know. Pinned
hisn's faith to the hay, like ; and when that
wer' car'd away by flood water, 't wer' arl
over wi' un. Turned strange, he did ; and the
shepherd ther', what found un, did warn the
missus how it 'ould be. And kep' watch over
un, he had, hisself, same as if er'd been one of
un's own yeo. Says he been a wonderfu' good
maister to he, strugglin' man though er had
come to be of late. Ther' wus' them as
threatened to sell un up ; and that broke un
'twus the last straw, for he wer' honest and
hardworkin', and wi' a fam'ly of sex at home.

" * Us never knew'd, just then, who 'twus as

1 Light-headed.

FATHER AND SON 149

broughted the body in wi' shepherd a thing
as they shouldn't a-done, seemin'ly. Arl as
us could see wus as he wore a red coat and
white breech, and as un had been wi' th' ounds,
and as un wus quite young. O' course I knows
right enough now ; but un's shot up a lot, wi'
a fine frame and look to un, since I a-seen un
last.

" ' And then us wus all in a caddie, yer see,
wi' the wailin', and wi' nought but the light of
a couple o' candles, and wi' a cold wet mizzle
a-fallin' through the fog. The childern was
packed off, and ther' wus only the por ooman
herself, left along o' the lot of us, inside and
outside door.

"'She stood ther', wi' the corner of her
kerchief tight between her teeth, and her eyen
arl of a zwim. She wer' growin' quieter,
yer see ; and presently she got her tongue, and
cries out quite loud " Can't no un say a bit of
a prayer ? " she says.

" ' Then the youngster, as wus among us,
just says " Kneel down," he did ; and we did
all obey un, inside and outside th' entrance
door, for, seemin'ly, he did take charge o' the
whole lot on us as wus ther' same as if he'd
been parson hisself.

" ' And what 'er did say wer' summut arter

ISO AINSLIE GORE

this manner, for I reckons I've hear'd it up at
Church, times. It wer' this as the merciful
One 'ould look upon our 'firmities, and for the
glory o' Hisn's name turn from all o' we, arl
them evils as we deserved, and 'ould grant
that in arl our'n troubles we meut put our
whole trust and confidence in Hisn's mercy,
and serve Un evermore in holiness and pure-
ness o' livin'. Then un did start "Our Fadyr
that art in Heaven, halloed be Thy Name " ;
and some on us did join in, and some on us
lacked courage, and turned off, like. And then
ther' wus quiet ; and Mrs. Hunlo did run
in, out o' breath, and took the widow away
upstairs, she did, and bided wi' her for the
night.

" ' The youngster just looks up, arter that,
and says as it weren't no use us a-bidin' ther'
no longer. So someun brought un hisn's hat,
and another un hisn's horse, as he'd been
a-walkin' up and down to kep the chill out of
un. And just then he turns towards the light,
and says quite low, like a real gen'leman
" Good-night to you all."

" ' I sees who 'twus then, in a jiffy. I knew'd
un. He wus off arter that to see Squire
Oakley up at the Court ; and I says to them
as wus round " I knows who the young hunter

FATHER AND SON 151

be, right enough. Why, that be Squire Gore's
son, o' Denton Manor."

" ' And shepherd he turns round, and says
" Hunter, or no hunter, he taken charge o' we,
mysterus fashion enough ; and I reckons he be
fit for parson, from what I can judge." And
at that, I just answers un, and says " He do
feature his mother, that way, wi'out a doubt,
for I've allus hear'd tell as she be saint."

" Well, that is what happened," resumed the
Squire; "and what I would not have had
happen to Ainslie, for all the world. He did
not get back here till after midnight, and was
off again the next morning, to see if he could
do anything to help ; and to-day, to give his
evidence before the Coroner."

The Squire's story was ended, and he rose
from his chair and walked towards the window.
In the silence that followed for a few minutes,
my mind naturally turned to Ainslie, and the
ordeal that such an experience must have
meant to a nature like his. But when we met,
two days later, all he said was " I would rather
have told you myself, though I don't care to
speak of it again. For the widow the position
is terrible ; but just think of the agony of mind
of that man before he came to do such a thing
as that."

152 AINSLIE GORE

Of course, after the manner of villagers, who
learn things by means concerning which the
rest of us know nothing, the whole story was
soon all over Denton, and more especially the
part that Ainslie had played. By the morbid-
minded and these numbered many the fact
that he had been mixed up in such a thing of
horror was regarded as giving him additional
importance. By the young men and boys he
was worshipped more than ever, and from a
healthy standpoint. But down at the little
shop, standing with bare, folded arms behind
her narrow counter, and drawing in her breath
as she spoke, Susan Mantel summed it up this
way " Staunch staunch ; same as Gores have
allus been same as he'll be, whether his life
be long or short you mark me ! "

Ainslie was given his first commission in
the spring of the following year, being gazetted
to his County Militia while still at Eton. His
father wished him to enter the Regular Service
in this way, and for what appeared to him to
be good reasons.

" Of course," he said, " Ainslie can pass any
examination he likes, and probably come out
high on the list ; but what I want him to do is

FATHER AND SON 153

to mix with the young fellows of his own
County, and for the older lot to get to know
him. The regiment is a very good one, and
there is scarcely an officer who does not hail
from one or the other of the families round
about. That is as it should be ; and moreover
the commissioned ranks are a bit full and it
has been a job to get him a place."

The Squire's decision meant that we were to
see less of each other for a time. It had been
decided that I was to enter the Army through
Sandhurst, so when once we had left Eton we
met comparatively seldom, though we always
kept touch by letter.

We had both learnt a little of our drill as
Volunteers, and had also studied the Red Book
and fathomed the mysteries of the elementary
portions of the same. But Ainslie decided
later on that it would be well if he attended the
School of Instruction at Wellington Barracks.
He never did anything by halves, and was as
keen about this as he had been about all the
games. To perfect himself in drill was to
perfect himself for all those duties that he
would eventually discharge, and that were
surrounded in his mind with a mystical halo of
their own.

And here a somewhat amusing incident

154 AINSLIE GORE

occurred, that brought to mind the expression
he had used on our last evening together at
Eton. Application had been made for him to
attend the course at Wellington Barracks ; but
through some mistake he had received no in-
structions up to within two days of the date
when the class would open. He therefore
went up to London, and the following morn-
ing attended at the barracks to make in-
quiry.

On the parade at the moment, a battalion of
the Guards was being drilled by their Sergeant-
major, and looking on was the Colonel com-
manding the School.

"Oh ; so you want to attend the next class,
do you ? " said this last, when Ainslie had an
opportunity of going up to him. " Then why
the dickens haven't you brought your orders ?
What's the use of expecting me to know any-
thing about them ? It's a War Office matter,
not mine, and you had better go and find out.
We begin to-morrow. What's your name ?
Gore, is it ? Well, I know nothing about it ;
and I think you are too late. But stay a
minute : do you know anything of your drill ?
Oh! a little. We'll soon see. Put your
umbrella down against the guard-room ; never
mind about a rifle ; and fall in in the leading

FATHER AND SON 155

company of this battalion : we will soon see
what you know."

The ordeal was no light one ; but in frock-
coat and tall hat, and rifle-less, Ainslie, who a
few weeks before had been the centre of interest
to a crowd of many thousands at Lord's, fell
into his place as number three in the front rank,
and was drilled for upwards of an hour on
Wellington Barracks' square. He came out of
it well and was ordered to join the School, and
when he told me the story he added

" I really did feel nobody, then, I can tell
you ; and moreover I had the fun, when we
were standing at ease, of watching a goat slowly
nibbling off the tassel on my new umbrella ! "

The Squire laughed heartily when told the
story. " Capital!" he said to me. "Doyousup-

pose that Colonel did not know him? Of

course he did : he was an Eton fellow himself,
as most of them are there, and was probably at
Lord's for the match. Snubbed him hand-
somely, and then fell him in in the ranks !
Well well ; that's where the training comes
in and the swagger is taken out of a boy. Not
that Ainslie ever had a grain in his whole body:
it is only those who can do nothing at all who
swagger a lot."

CHAPTER V

ABROAD AND AT HOME

I WISH I had kept more of his letters : those in
this bundle seem so very few. The best con-
solation is that the earlier ones might not have
interested many, the letters of our teens being
generally hurried productions, written as if
under protest, to satisfy the recipients that we
are alive and then to be destroyed.

For the most part, Ainslie's no doubt con-
formed to the general rule ; but I can recall
others that contained much of his individual
self, being wholly unstudied and with the
thoughts of the moment jotted down as they
came uppermost. A few of these remain ; the
loss of those others I deplore. They would
have told so much more of him than I can hope
to do, boys like men showing their true selves
in their written, even more than in their spoken
words, however much they may try, on occa-
sions, to put their very best into both. Truth
always springs to the fore and declares itself,

here as elsewhere ; and if in this lies a con-

156

ABROAD AND AT HOME 157

venience to others, there is also in it, occasion-
ally, something of inconvenience to ourselves.
Lit era script a manet.

Ainslie went to Germany for some months
shortly after he left Eton, establishing himself
at Leipzig, and living there alone during that
winter and until the time arrived for him to
return for his Militia training in the spring.
His object in doing this was primarily to learn
the language, but largely also to study music.

" I have been out here for over two months
now," he wrote to me at this time, " and
live in the funniest house you ever saw, No. 8
Post Strasse. There is no other lodger, or
is there room for one, and I am looked after
by a homely old Frau and her daughter also
apparently by the police, who have bagged my
passport and say I shall have it back if I am
a good boy, and come and tell them when I
am leaving. I occupy the upper floor. There
is a corner for me in my sitting-room, but the
rest is taken up by a piano, a stove, and a
shrank to hold my clothes. I get to my
diminutive bedroom from this by a glass door.
The ceilings of both are very low. Every-
thing is very low, except the roof, which is
high and very steep ; and possibly if you were
in the street at this moment, and I was to

158 AINSLIE GORE

open one of the two small windows, I could
shake hands with you without difficulty. You
would not like the street just now, for two feet
of snow lies there, and opening the windows is
not exactly easy, as they are double, to keep
out the cold.

" Of course I am much alone ; but, as you
know, that has no terrors for me. I work hard,
walk harder, when the snow permits, and do
a deal of listening to music. Haussman, of
the Conservatorium, is very good to me, and
so is Doctor Peschel, to whom I go daily for
German lessons. The first is a refined, delicate-
looking man who reads Dickens in German,
and asks me how to pronounce the names of
our friends of the Pickwick Club. The Herr
Doctor is a man of vigour and few illusions,
and is local correspondent of The Times.

" But just think, dear boy I am only about
four hundred yards from the church where the
supremely great John Sebastian was organist,
and actually go and hear the organ he played
on and look up at the seat where he sat ! I
think he will always loom as large as any man
in my eyes, and because of the good he has
done to the souls of innumerable men and
must go on doing, for that matter, the most
flawless creations in all higher forms of art

ABROAD AND AT HOME 159

being granted, like those souls I speak of,
something of immortality. Fancy being able
to do that and to acquire that, all of a go ! I
don't mean, so much, the merely immortal
reputation, but the other thing.

"So, you see, what with the links with
Bach, the music at the Gewandhaus, the
operas at the theatre entrance, one mark
and walking miles over the great battlefield
of 1813, the various points of which I have
fairly mastered, I am tolerably well set up.
But my English books are few worse luck !
The chief among them is Bacon's Advancement
of Learning, which I hate, but which I have
to swallow with a number of others for the
English Literature part of my exam. In the
German tongue, I try to read Goethe, whom I
love, and also Schiller, whom I reverence.

" I wonder what sport you are having at
home, and whether you are giving your sister
the lead you should, or whether she is leading
you as she shouldn't. I was quite right, you
see, when I said I should not want a horse
this season. But, dear me how I should like
a gallop ! Mind you tell me, when you write,
how you find my people. Just slip over there,
like a good chap, and have a look at them.
They both write cheerily ; but then you know

160 AINSLIE GORE

they are not to be trusted, where their two
dear old selves are concerned.

" Only one thing more ; and don't tell any-
body I like these Germans enormously. And
you should just see their troops, their officers
especially. The whole thing is so thorough
and so professional, and also, where training
is concerned, so desperately severe. It is all
very well our talking as we do of things
1 made in Germany.' I only wish we had
the secret of the way many things in this
country are made, and not by men's hands
alone. Perhaps, however, they wish they had
some of our secrets, too our system of
athletics, for instance. I feel sure they do :
so it's ' honours easy ' ! Good-bye. A. G."

I have only two other letters of his belonging
to this period, the first being dated in March
of the following year, and running thus :

" The snow has all gone, and things are
looking up a bit. One of the big Generals of
the place lives opposite, and it appears to be
his right to have a regimental band to play to
him in the morning, now and again. Peschel
doesn't see much of me then ! It is too splendid
to miss. There were sixty-three in the band
I counted the other day they belonged to the
, a Saxon Rifle Regiment. To listen to

ABROAD AND AT HOME 161

them is to feel that every man among them is
really a musician, and plays his best because
he loves it, as well as, what is more, because
he understands it. I mean, he is not a
machine, blowing with all the force of its lungs
at a bombardon, and for its own individual
glory, but a fellow who is intent on perfecting
the general effect to the very utmost of his
power, if also at the same time living in some
dread of the conductor's spectacles !

" A really good, soldiers' band always gets
inside me, and turns me inside out. You
should hear these fellows, for instance, playing
the Preislied in the Meister singer. You know
the solemnity of parts of that, and also the
sadness at least, I think you do, and will
understand what I mean by this last.

" The best music of the best of such bands
has always, to me, this kind of refrain behind
it. At the back of even the gaiety, there is
something else the other side even though
the tunes be jigs that make men feel inclined
to dance. In the very volume of sound, the
full tone, the carefully measured crescendo that
ends with the silvery clash of the cymbals,
there are strength and beauty, and also some-
thing stirring ; and thus, such music, by these
uni formed men, speaks to me always of that

L

162 AINSLIE GORE

other side to which I have referred, and that
is nothing less than the history that is embodied
in a regiment's name its titles, its marchings
over half the globe, the names emblazoned
on its consecrated colours, the roll of those
who lived their day in its ranks and laid down
their lives in its track.

" Just take this one the lOQth. They went
to France for the great war of '7o-'7i. They
stood three battalions strong, with, shall we
say, something over eighty officers. I know
some of the officers of the regiment now, and
these have told me that when the regiment
returned in the winter of '72, and marched once
more through these streets, only four of the
officers who went out two years before were
present on parade.

" That is the past, and that other side I
speak of, and which is embodied, as I say, in this
living thing this regiment, with its gay clothes
and gay tunes ; that has its story writ in history,
and looks with some steadfastness, amidst the
laughter and the cheers, to make its sacrifices
yet again in time to come ; to add another
page to its records ; to put up yet another
monument to its slain. That is what soldiers'
bands always bring back to me ; and as I
listen I dream dreams of things of which you

ABROAD AND AT HOME 163

and I know nothing yet of that other side,
that you and I will some day know.

" The snow here has all gone, and spring
is coming. I picked the first cowslip in the
so-called forest yesterday. There is a shallow
stream there, but no trout ! It is only a big
wood, and, as the ground is flat, it is featureless,
like the rest of the country round here. But
it all seems wonderfully familiar, with its oaks
and ash and the golden-green catkins on the
hazel, just as they are at home at this moment.

" Nature is always beautiful, even in this
uninteresting country, with its miles of un-
dulating, unenclosed land, its straight, strategic
roads, and ugly-coloured soil. There is nothing
grand, of course, in any of it, if I except
space and distance, two conditions that, to me,
have always something grand about them, land
or sea immeasurably grand if one looks sky-
wards, night or day.

" But, all the same, it is not the grand that one
often wants ; and it is not always the grand
in which one finds the greatest beauty. It is
in the small things and the simple things that
I, for one, find what I require most ; and
beauty, in some form, is what we all look for,
sooner or later. Indeed, I go further than that,
and say that we were purposely so constituted

164 AINSLIE GORE

as not to be able to live without it. It lies in
our roadway at every yard, though we walk
blind and may never see it. It is scattered all
about our world with an infinitely wise prodi-
gality, that we may meet with it when we most
want it, that we may make it our own in the
glad days as in those of Sturm und Drang.

"But I must stop. You will think me grow-
ing too serious, and so I am ; and you may
think that I have been too much alone, and I
have not. What is solitude to one is not so
to another, and if I am alone, I have never
yet known what it is to be lonely. Still, no
doubt, it is long since I had a good laugh, and
should like one with you, just as I should like
many other things with you. It won't be long
now, though, and I don't think I have wasted
my time. If there is anyone about you who
gives me a thought now and then, give them
my remembrance and say I often think of
them. Yours ever, A. G."

His last letter to me from Leipzig was
written a few days before leaving, and ran
thus :

" I am packing up that is, not merely putting
clothes and boots and books and and and
music into a box, but also saying good-bye
to those I have come to know and to like here,

ABROAD AND AT HOME 165

for I still like these Germans and admire them
more and more. They are not us, necessarily ;
but they are very great ! The police have
been duly called upon by me, and seem to
think, after looking up the matter, that there
is nothing particular against me, and that I
may therefore have my passport the day after
to-morrow. It is just in these directions that
they are so unlike us. There is no real liberty
or freedom, it seems to me, and a man may
not even put a brass plate on his own door
without the leave of these same armed police.
It is all militarism and order, swords and
uniforms ; everyone salutes everyone else, and
even the scavengers take off their hats to one
another. It is all right for them, with a possible
enemy just across half a dozen borders : but it
would not do in our old country, where every-
one shoulders along, doing and saying pretty
much what he likes, and where stoical, unarmed
bobbies smile their good-natured smiles at the
crowd.

" I have just been looking at the dates.
Are you aware that in little more than a year
we may be in touch with the real thing ?
First, comes this training in May. Then
follows a spell of work and some cricket.
In the winter, more work and perhaps some

166 AINSLIE GORE

hunting. Then the training again ; then this
exam. . . . and then . . . well ; you and I will
be launched, with our names in the Gazette,
and our dies cast. I think you may be a week
or two behind me, only however to pass me
afterwards.

" If my father manages what he believes he
will, there will be no doubt about the regiment
for us both. When my father takes a thing
up, he generally runs it through. Of course,
in working for us, he has his service behind
him; but he also has, as they say, 'such a
way with him.' It is not many who could
resist his face, could they ? it's so good-
humoured, so honest and open. You would
wager any man with a face like that was
true as steel ; and if, as I have often thought,
there is a certain shyness in his manner, it is
the diffidence of a real gentleman, and that
pays !

"If I leave here on Tuesday, I shall be in
London on Thursday morning, and at Denton
the same evening. You should be home by
now, so I will come over on the chance of
seeing you on Friday afternoon. Will you
please tell somebody that I have been paying
especial attention to Chopin, and for very good
reasons. I can't play him a bit, and come

ABROAD AND AT HOME 167

the most awful howlers over the Impromptu,
Op. 29, and a good many more things besides.

" The truth is, dear boy, I came from the
company of a lot of mediocrities into the
presence of a world of professionals. I was
even fool enough to think, once, that I could
play a little. I find now that I cannot play
at all, so mind neither you nor anybody else
asks me and certainly not in a formal way
and on a formal occasion. Our music used
to be great fun, when we strummed and sang
and lolled about. I should like to go back
to that. There is a time-worn adage dealing
with such desires ; you know it, so I won't
quote it.

" I can't write to-day. How could anybody
when they are packing up ; when the room
that has contained them is in disorder, with
large gaps in it, due in this case to the absence
of my piano that is being at this moment
engineered down the narrow staircase by five
experts and out into the street? Presently
it will be going up the street, like the remains
of a departed friend, though, my dear fellow,
not with prayers and chants, crosses and
candles, but with the echo of Himmels and
Welters and the strangest imprecations, from
the throats of those whose whole lives are

168 AINSLIE GORE

spent in moving heavy pianos up and down
impossible stairways, and in and out of all the
houses of this exceedingly musical town. See
you soon ! Good-bye. A. G."

I knew about the time to expect him on
that Friday afternoon, and went half a mile
through our woods to meet him. He soon
appeared, at the other end of a grass ride,
sitting slackly in his saddle and whistling a
tune to himself. He had not altered a bit
in the six months since we last met. There
was the same outward cheeriness about him ;
the same deep tone in his voice, and laugh
in his clear, grey eyes.

" How beautiful it all is!" he exclaimed,
after an informal greeting between us. " The
wild daffers are out in the hedges on our side,
and here are all these masses of primroses
making their appearance, with the palm at its
very best on the black sallies. You can't
think how it strikes one, after foreign parts
and life in a great big town. The birds were
singing this morning soon after five, and that
got me up, and I have been out ever since.
How is your sister ; and how are your people?
All well that's good."

ABROAD AND AT HOME 169

Half an hour later we had had tea, and we
three younger ones went off to amuse ourselves.
The last half hour of sunlight was flooding
the room to which we went through three
large windows. At one end there was an
exceptionally wide sofa covered with red chintz
of bold design, and on this my sister flung
herself, while Ainslie finished telling me some-
thing about the look of the German soldiers
that he had begun as we entered.

The room is just as it was then, and I
can see my sister lying back on that sofa
now, with her hands folded behind her masses
of dark brown hair, and Raeburn's portrait of
her grandmother hanging just above her. She
was dressed, that day, in some light material
of a pale yellow colour that set off her tall,
slim figure to perfection ; she being then not
quite eighteen, and certainly very beautiful.

Presently she got up from the sofa as if
something had occurred to her; went quietly
across the room, opened a piano at the farther
end, and then went as quietly back to her
place again. Ainslie half turned his head and
smiled, bringing what he was saying to an end.

" I didn't mean to stop you," came a voice
from the sofa. " I was only getting things ready.
Play us both something do."

170 AINSLIE GORE

" For heaven's sake, not yet," returned
Ainslie. " And if I must let's all play, and
let's all sing, and let's all do just exactly what we
used to do. Formality spoils half the music."

"That's quite true," returned my sister;
"but why consider it formal? Surely two
people in a room can't make it that, or one
added to them at a piano make up a formal
concert. Besides, isn't this just the time for
music ? Look, the sun is going down, and it
is all peace outside." She had raised herself
on the pillows and had dropped her arms on
her knees. What a picture she made then !

The appeal and the picture together were
too much for Ainslie, and he went across the
room and sat down. I do not remember what
he played, but it was exactly what was wanted
at the moment. He kept the pedal down till
sound had died away, and sat as if listening
intently. " There is nothing to beat a Broad-
wood grand like this, after all. This bass is
magnificent," he said.

" Sing something," came from the sofa again,
the speaker having thrown herself back on the
pillows, with her head turned to the nearest
window that she might watch the sky.

Ainslie laughed at the request. " I assure
you I can neither play nor sing," he said.

ABROAD AND AT HOME 171

" Oh, sing something," I put in, going over
towards a corner of the room behind him. " It
doesn't matter what it is."

Ainslie smiled and struck a chord or two.
Then he began and, after playing a few bars,
stopped. " That's the piano part I can't call
it the accompaniment," he said. " Just listen
to it. Of course it is part of a complete whole ;
but to me it is more beautiful than the air
or even the words, and I play it often for
itself."

" I am not able to judge till I hear them :
I will make up my mind when I do," said my
sister, softly, a smile crossing her face.

"Will you? Very well listen, then," said
Ainslie, and without adding more began the
accompaniment over again. It was Edward
Grieg's Ich Hebe Dick, and the song runs in
my head whenever I recall that spring evening.

Du mem Gedanke, du mein Sein und Warden !
Du meines Herzens erste Seligkeit !
Ich liebe dich wie nichts auf dieser Erden,
Ich liebe dich, ich liebe dich, ich liebe dich
In Zeit und Ewigkeit, in Zeit und Ewigkeit.

Ich denke dein, kann stets nur deiner denken,
Nur deinem Gliicke ist mein Herz geweiht,
Wie Gott auch mag des Lebens Shicksal lenken,
Ich liebe dich, ich liebe dich, ich liebe dich
In Zeit und Ewigkeit, in Zeit und Ewigkeit.

172 AINSLIE GORE

Once again the pedal was left down, and
silence slowly fell upon the room. I turned
to look at my sister, and fancied there was a
colour in her cheeks that had not been there
before. The last of the daylight was waning,
and perhaps I could not see plainly.

" Here ; I must be going ! " exclaimed
Ainslie, quite suddenly, jumping up from the
piano. " It is getting dark."

"How German you are!" came the voice
once again from the sofa.

The Militia training passed off without in-
cident. Ainslie quickly won his way with his
brother officers, many of whom had known him
before ; the seniors nodding their heads to one
another and remarking " He'll do."

Then he returned to Denton for the summer,
to work at his various subjects, to help his
father and mother in many ways, and to play
cricket with his village club.

" Ther'll be doin's now, I can see, plain,"
remarked Bill Terret. " I could find of it as
soon as ever the young Squire come home.
Ther's to be a match agin Blifford, come
Sat'day; and I've been a-axin' he whether
he'd judge it well for I to take to round-arm.

ABROAD AND AT HOME 173

' No-a, no-a/ says he ' you kep on wi' yer
under-hand : you does quite sufficient execu-
tion with that as 'tis.' "

" Wull," returned Sam Cook, the shepherd,
" I reckons he be about right ther', an' as it
'ould be a'most a pity to make a change till
us sees how things goes on."

I was away at Sandhurst during those
months, the only letter of his that I kept being
this :

" Everything much as usual here. My
mother always busy over a thousand different
things, and working with positively amazing
energy at each in turn. Her influence is won-
derful, and the village folk appear to worship
her more than ever. As to my father he
continues all his County work, and, what with
that and the estate, seems never to have a
moment till the evening ; and even then he
is often writing letters or trying to do accounts,
when he ought to be in bed. I think the
condition of things on the land tries him ; but
ne never lets it out, except sometimes to de-
plore the changes.

" ' Half the pleasure of country life is gone,
or going,' he said to me last night, 'and it is
all becoming so different to what it was. Not
so long ago they wanted me to come forward

i 7 4 AINSLIE GORE

as one of these new County Councillors. Of
course I said I had no objection, though I
didn't believe the County work was going to
be better done than it had been. But when
they told me I must go round and ask people
for their votes, in order to get this precious C.C.
honour, I simply said that nothing would in-
duce me to. If people liked to vote for me
very well ; but I wasn't going begging to their
doors after helping in the work for nearly
thirty years. Anyway, they made me a County
Alderman in the end, so there was no need of
my going round, cap in hand. I hope every-
body will be impressed ! ' Can't you imagine
him saying that, and his amusement at the
whole thing ?

"You know we have given up preserving,
and are turning out no pheasants this year. I
doubt which is most melancholy Giles Merrett,
when he looks at his coops stored in the sheds,
or old Welfare, when he pokes his nose into
his empty stalls and boxes. My father also
intends to get our third man a place and leave
Giles with only one under him. Of course it
is all part of the general come-down; but
neither the farmers nor the men like it. The
first say that the pheasants never did them any
real harm ; and do less, now that the land round

ABROAD AND AT HOME 175

the coverts is nearly all down to grass. They
also declare that, in the keepers, they have
staunch supporters in preventing trespass a
matter of some importance with the orcharding
everywhere and people, in these days, claiming
rights of way where they have no right to be.
As for the men on the place, these dislike it
even more than the others. Our days in the
coverts were holidays for them, with good
money added, a good feed, plenty of cider, a
trifle to be picked up for carrying cartridges,
and what is dearer than anything in their eyes
a rabbit to be taken home at the end of the
day. So we are all the poorer, one way and
another, and likely to become still more so.

" Trappers are everywhere now, and hares
are pretty well exterminated. I think the last
is certainly a pity ; and it seems to me very
poor form, all things considered. But it is no
use dwelling on such things. Even you and I
can remember when a farmer was glad to leave
a bit of hand-reap stubble down the length of
a wheat field, and where we could certainly
find birds in September. We have come to
days now when there is not only no hand reap,
but precious little stubble of any kind. What
there is, is shaven close to the ground. But
what's the use of talking about it ; you know it

176 AINSLIE GORE

all just as well as I do, and as my father says
' It can't be helped, and we have got to
accept it.' Depend upon it, it is harder for
him than for us.

"But here is something brighter than all
this. A great event has happened in our
family. My father's youngest brother my
uncle John was married last year, and he has
just had a son born to him, and I am to be
godfather! My old father is delighted, and
says ' Ah, John ought to have married long
ago, since Robert never has, and never will
now. I hope he will have a lot more : Gores,
like other things we know of, aren't half thick
enough on the ground not half ! '

" I am getting through a lot of work. My
father suggests a tutor : but I can see my way
to doing without, so say it is quite unnecessary.
Why add to expense, where one can help it ?
I say we beat Blifford the other day by an
innings and two runs. I went out for four, a
beast of a ball hitting me in the forehead and
then taking my bails. The ground wants a
little attention and I must be at it with a roller ;
but a really bad ground equalises all players,
and that is where the beauty of it comes in
and the fun.

" There was certainly fun in this case. The

ABROAD AND AT HOME 177

scorer, old Jimmy, was puzzled how to enter
such a thing as my dismissal. Of course Bill
came to his assistance, with ' Bowled horf the
heye, o' course ; what more could anyun want
to zee on scorin' sheet?' Jimmy screwed up
his lips over his toothless gums, and still re-
mained in doubt. We got it all right after a
bit! Good-bye. Yours ever, A. G."

There seems to have been little to mark the
rest of that year or the earlier part of the next,
so far as I can gather from other people, or
recollect myself. I can recall many a day's
shooting that September, when the Squire and
Ainslie and I were out together over the
Denton estate, the Squire leaving it to us,
now, to do the outside of the beats, and taking
short cuts himself. It was not a country suit-
able for driving, and we always walked the
birds, and sometimes took out a brace of
pointers.

I believe the Squire enjoyed those days as
much as any in the year, especially as he could
now no longer face the flats by the Severn,
when north-easterly winds brought the snipe
and there was a rim of ice along the reens.
Such things as wading in the shallows when
days were at their shortest waiting in the
chilly dusk for the whistle of a mallard's wing

M

178 AINSLIE GORE

at cockshut were not for him ; but at the
same time he would often give us the most
minute directions concerning the best course
to follow, if bent upon such things ourselves,
taking stock as he spoke of the direction of
the wind, and looking up to see whether the
sky held rain or snow.

He always contended that true sport was
never a soft job, and seemed to think that it
would lose all source of enjoyment as well as
training if it became so. He had contempt for
luxury and every form of self-indulgence, and I
remember his saying to Ainslie " I know, you
as my son will never give way to anything of
that kind, and that you hate the effeminacy of
it as much as I do. But mind both of you
always set your face against it you will grow
up all the better men if you do."

We were sitting in a row, at the moment, on
a gate that Merrett had unhung and laid in the
tussocky grass on the sunny side of a hedge,
sharing a bit of bread and meat with the men
during the half-hour we gave ourselves in the
September days I speak of. The wide vale
lay spread out below, with the Forest hills all
blue to the west, and the sands of the Severn
showing that the tide there was at dead low
water. Ainslie was often very silent at such

ABROAD AND AT HOME 179

moments. He seemed to be taking stock of
different points in the landscape, chewing a dry
bent between his teeth ; occasionally looking
up at "the domes of marble" in the high
heavens, and no doubt thinking many things.

Alice Grey was still to the fore when that
winter came, and with her, and many mounts
he was offered, Ainslie saw some of the best
days of the season. He had a good eye for
country, with beautiful hands on a horse and a
picture of a seat, and thus many were glad
to get him to ride a young one for them and
asked him to dine and sleep at their houses for
the purpose. It was so in my father's case,
and Ainslie accordingly often spent a night at
my home whether I was there or not, all of us
being equally fond of him.

Nor was it different elsewhere. He was
accepted wherever he went and in whatever
company he found himself, and I remember a
very prominent personage in our County say-
ing of him once in my hearing " I can't
explain it exactly ; but there is coming about
in young Ainslie Gore a kind of irresistible
attraction. If he was my son I should feel
that his universal popularity would prove to be
one of his greatest dangers in life."

All I can say myself is, that if there was a

i8o AINSLIE GORE

snare here, Ainslie certainly went scatheless,
for he was totally unaware of the fact him-
self.

The Squire gave up hunting about this
time, and talking of it some years later said
to me " I might have come down to the
proverbial old gentleman's cob ; but you know
there was not much fun in that. So I just
decided to have done with it altogether, and
hung up my crops behind the door. Kept
up my subscriptions to the various funds, of
course ; had to do that for the credit of the
place and Ainslie's sake, leaving him to take
what change he liked out of it."

There was something inspiring in the way
that Squire Gore faced the growing difficulties
and all he was trying to do. He had once
wanted for nothing : he was now only able
to maintain himself at Denton by his income
from invested funds. For many a year, in
former times, he had known what it was to be
pocket-easy to be able to give away liberally ;
to fill his house at all seasons ; to do this and
to do that, without troubling himself about the
cost. But the estate was now showing a heavy
balance on the wrong side annually, and he
was therefore using all his endeavours to cur-
tail expenditure, and also to do what he had

ABROAD AND AT HOME 181

never done before to keep private accounts in
detail, a task that puzzled him much.

His neighbours in the County watched him
with a smile of admiration, guessing also,
perhaps, what he and his wife had partly in
view in denying themselves as they were
doing. Many of the tenants expressed regret,
and then turned and looked at their own
pockets and their several farms : at the same
time they did not like to see a lowering of the
standard of living in the case of their landlord ;
it reflected in a way upon themselves.

The labouring men, for their part, frequently
compared notes over their ale, contrasting the
present with the past, up at the Manor. The
vein of their talk had often something of
melancholy in it, and having expressed their
feelings and their regard for the Squire and his
good lady on such occasions as they sat,
perhaps, and talked in the taproom of the
Gore Arms usually brought their proceedings
to an end after a prolonged silence, by plac-
ing a considerable share of the blame on the
wrong shoulders.

Possibly Susan Mantel put it best into words,
a good deal of gossip passing over that narrow
counter of hers in the course of a year " For
my part," she said, to her opposite neighbour,

182 AINSLIE GORE

Mrs. Tull " it do seem as if one class wus
going up in spite o' the times, and t'other
class wus coming down 'cause o' the times.
'Tis queer ; and if I can't seem to get beyond
it, somehows, I can yet tell ye this, Mrs. Tull,
as Gores ain't soon darnted no, that them
hain't! Neither th' old Squire nor his good
lady do give away less than they did used, in
parish and about ; but Squire be far-sighted,
an' his son be jus' everythin' to un. Zeed 'em
pass last night, I did ; a-goin' by with the
young un on the old un's arm, and I says to
myself, Mrs. Tull, I says it be there lies the
secret, I says ; and time do creep on for us
arl."

Mrs. Tull had come across to buy three-
pennyworth of dips. She wore a red and
black check shawl, and a black cap with a frill
to it. Her complexion was sallow and her
neck was extraordinarily thin, and she was
Susan's senior by some years. One of her
thin hands was holding the door-post as Susan
talked ; but when it came to her turn to put in
a word, the bufHe in her breath, 1 as they called
it here, prevented her saying much, and she
contented herself therefore with nodding her
head and repeating Susan's last words more

1 A stammer.

ABROAD AND AT HOME 183

than once, before picking her way homewards
across the muddy road " L-l-lies the secret ;
an' t-t-time do creep on ah, well, to be
sure."

I cannot do better, I think, than give here
a part of one of the Squire's letters to his son,
though it belongs to a year or two later than
this, when Ainslie was many hundred miles
away. The last paragraphs run thus :

" I can assure you that there is no cause for
the least anxiety on your part ; and the very
last thing either your mother or I would dream
of doing would be to cut down your allowance.
How like you to think of that! I want you,
on the contrary, to live in the way that you
should, as heir to this old home of our family
keep a good horse and win the regimental
race ! I know what Denton is to you, and also
what you are to us. The old home will be
safe in your hands, and I can feel happy on
that score. I am trying my best to keep
everything up to such a standard, that when
a change comes you can let things lie down
for a year or two.

" One point, however, I am quite sure of,
and it is this that if, in trying to tide the
tenants over these bad times by every means
possible, and doing all that I want to do besides,

184 AINSLIE GORE

we are hit even harder than we are now,
nothing will ever make me go out of these
doors to let a stranger in. Rents may go
down, as they have already done in some
cases, from thirty shillings an acre to twelve
and sixpence altogether insufficient to cover
the tithe, land tax, income duty, insurance and
repairs or coppice wood may fall, as it has
now done with us, from twelve and fourteen
pounds an acre to three but I mean to stick
it out, and so does your mother, if we have to
take to one of the attics and live on bread and
cheese.

" I don't say this in any bragging spirit I
hope I am not capable of that kind of form ;
but that is what I feel. A family property is
a trust, for the time being, of the man who
holds it, and the duty of people of our class
seems to me to be to continue to live among
their own folk, in the homes where their for-
bears have long carried on traditions still
trying to do their best by those about them ;
fighting out all that comes, and that will come,
mind you, if I know anything of the times ;
and without a particle of hesitation, much less
fear if, indeed, I care to use such a word as
that last at all. I must stop. I feel sure it
will be all right indeed, my dear boy, I know

ABROAD AND AT HOME 185

it will. Ever your affectionate old father,
RUPERT GORE."

There was nothing to mark the next few
months. With the spring came the Militia
training again for Ainslie, followed by a spell
at his books and the examination. A few
weeks later the news arrived that he had
passed, his name appearing with others in
alphabetical order, the examination not being
competitive at that date.

That same morning the Squire left for
London, saying to Ainslie, with a broad smile
on his good-humoured face as he wished him
good-bye on the front-door steps " It won't
do for us to run any risks in a matter of this
kind. Of course there are many fine Regi-
ments in our Service ; but there can only be
one really for me and you. So I must just
go up and see Sir Edward and one or two
more, and remind them of their promises.
And I shan't come back till I have squared
it for you both. Ah ; the Regiment ! you
should have seen them move in the old days
seen them move ! " Then he was gone ;
touching up the old horse and playing with
the lash of his whip, with Welfare wreathed in
smiles on the back seat of the dog-cart behind
him.

186 AINSLIE GORE

An official envelope made its appearance not
long afterwards and Ainslie found himself
gazetted to one of the most distinguished
Regiments of the British Army, being subse-
quently ordered to join the second battalion
of the same overseas.

The Squire was jubilant, and there was a
quiet delight in the eyes of his wife. The
break up that it meant in their small home
circle affected them in different ways ; but
numbers of the family had gone out from these
walls on similar errands, and this new recruit
was only one more added to a long list : it was
all quite natural and as it should be.

CHAPTER VI

SOME SOLDIERING, AND OTHER THINGS

So we both stepped out into the world, and
sought in our several ways to become men.

Ainslie of course carried all his ideals with
him, like some stock-in-trade upon which he
had to maintain himself so many warm-
blooded realities standing at his elbow ; not by
any means mere fantasies, but to become daily
more definite to be attained, captured, made
his very own. And if his aims were high, he
sought to make the tools he worked with fit for
such purposes, just as he continued ever to
believe that all things he was brought into con-
tact with were capable of being made the best
of their kind, or at least in some way better
than they were.

" I often think," he said to me once "that
by the beauty given to us so freely on every
hand, Nature sets a standard for us who pose
as masters here. It is true that this beauty is

often hidden from us that is, in the sense that

187

i88 AINSLIE GORE

it demands search, not to mention many other
things besides. But there are two further
points to do with it that never fail to appeal to
me. The first is that in Nature's world beauty
is nearly always progressive from the seed to
the flower and the fruit ; and the other, that it
increases the closer we come to it and the more
we strive to make it our own.

" I believe it to be very much the same with
ourselves. Beauty in some form is implanted
in every one of us, and we are meant to search
for it, to bring it out, to use it and to perfect it.
You may call it my philosophy, if you like ; but
don't forget that all Nature is just the manifes-
tation of one great truth after another. And if
that is so, and purpose is inherent in the whole,
it seems to me pretty feeble for us men not to
realise the fact, instead of being content to sit
with folded hands or to trudge along with aim-
less feet. Depend upon it there must always
be continual progress and reform progress
towards a more perfect beauty the cleansing
of what is inherently false and wrong. And
hence there comes about this that behind
beauty, in whatever form, there is the beckon-
ing finger; the claim for distinct aim, even
though we catch at phantoms and be babies
crying for the moon ! " and he broke into a

SOME SOLDIERING 189

laugh as if to cover the seriousness he had
thrown into his sentences.

Certainly his aims lent immeasurable zest to
his life, giving him happiness of a kind not
often met with. As the years of manhood
opened, enthusiasms appeared to radiate from
him more and more. He seemed to find the
world a happy place ; and in one of his letters
I find him writing as to this

" Life is the finest of all sports, if you come
to look at it closer. You have never to travel
far for opportunities and you can always hunt
them, not forgetting that they have a trick of
sometimes hunting you. And if that looks
enigmatical, it is not so much of an enigma as
it seems. You at least will not think that I
forget the serious side. I certainly do not ;
but I think that reference to it is best kept in
the background. By over-emphasis it is apt to
get blunted, and may easily turn to something
not quite so becoming.

" It is precious difficult, I know, for some of
us to call always for the merry tune and to
drink deeply of the many wines of life : I often
find it so myself. But all the same, keep the
merry tune running in the head, and fill the
chalice with the richest to be purchased ay,
and slap up to the brim ! Neither will ever

i 9 o AINSLIE GORE

mar or stain, and you will find happiness in
both it will come to you from both sides, too,
the serious no less than the gay.

" I came across this the other day, when
reading the life of Pasteur, and give it you in
English ' Happy the man who carries within
himself a God, an ideal of beauty, and who
obeys it : the ideal of art, the ideal of science,
the ideal of Country, the ideal of Gospel virtues
these are the living springs of great thoughts
and great deeds.'

" You and I are not likely to give the world
great thoughts or to be guilty of great actions,
the capacity to do either being the endowment
of the merest fraction of mankind. But that is
no reason why we should not possess our little
hopes and have our little aims, and be as happy
in their possession as the giants we read of,
hear of, and very rarely see. We can't be
great. We know that, right enough. Our
place is with the rank and file. But because
we are insignificant, there seems to me to be
all the more reason to begin with ourselves
and to furbish up the little talents that we have."

Ainslie was gazetted to the Regiment about
two months before me, and went through the

SOME SOLDIERING 191

ordeal of joining it alone. " You know when a
single hound is thrown out," he wrote to me,
shortly afterwards "all the pack growl at him
as a stranger when he returns, and look as if
they'd eat him. Well, joining isn't quite as
bad as that, so far as I am able to judge, for
the fellows here are naturally rather a picked
lot and don't therefore either growl or look as
if they'd eat me. Indeed, some go out of their
way to give me a hint or two, and help me to
find my way about. I can see that I have got
it all to learn, and of course this first go off is
rather overpowering. For one thing, the last
joined are somewhat ignored ; and for the first
year or more their voices are not reckoned to
be heard in the mess-room. ' Seen and not
heard ' is the rule ; and in this seeing on the
part of others lies the judging all the time,
while in the holding of your tongue we all know
there is virtue.

" To become one of a great Regiment seems
to me like suddenly becoming a member of
a great family, and heir at once to all its
traditions. It is a new home, peopled by those
you have never seen before, and several among
whom are distinguished. To walk in therefore
at the front door labelled, here, Officers' Mess
simply, my dear fellow, makes one quake.

192 AINSLIE GORE

But, after all, much depends upon oneself. If
you behave as you should, there is nothing
to be afraid of; if you are a fool, you will
be treated as such and deserve it. A fellow,
for instance, joined here last year, and strolling
into the Orderly Room where the Colonel
had just been dispensing justice, put out his
hand, saying ' How do, Colonel ; think we've
met before.' So some of his brother subalterns
took him down to the back yard in his night
attire that evening, and having pointed out the
tap against the wall, ordered him to take his
seat there and turn it on. Served him right,
I think : too much side ! They say he is
becoming a first-rate fellow now, though he
did not surrender to the first tap.

" Then again, if one is always having one's
measure taken by brother officers, you may
depend upon it you are being also pretty
closely fitted by the men perhaps even more
closely. Sooner or later, I fancy, you will
stand out before them in just the clothes to
suit you, and no others. A fellow, here, said
to me the other day ' You can't be too
particular about all you do before the men.
Remember, they are always watching you,
especially at first ; and what is more, they
are perpetually comparing notes. The result

SOME SOLDIERING 193

is that they come to a decision about you at
once, and probably know more about you in
three days than you do about yourself.'

" I like that ; and though the verdict may
be very different to what we believe or think
it ought to be, it is certain to be fairly just.
We are always too jolly sure of our mental
estimate of ourselves. In this case, however,
we shall probably find out the truth of the
verdict passed upon us, when the supreme
hour arrives and there is a check instead of
a bound forward. Fail to win these fellows'
hearts, and they will fail you, and fail them-
selves through you don't forget that : win their
hearts and their confidence at the same time,
and they will follow you to well, blazes !
The real remedy, I think, is to be a gentleman
at all times ; and there is no surer judge of
a gentleman, especially if he is country-bred,
than Tommy, the gentleman, himself."

A long, whitewashed building in the full
blaze of a Southern sun, with three intermin-
able rows of windows all set deep in the wall
and all alike fitted with green jalousies. To
right and left and somewhat to the front, two
square blocks of similar design these being

N

194 AINSLIE GORE

known as the North and South Pavilions, or
Officers' Quarters, and the whole, as The South
Barracks. Set right in the centre of the long,
main block, and approached by a flight of ten
much-worn steps, is the principal entrance,
with other similar, though smaller, ones at the
extremities of this white, featureless erection
that remains much as when the Spaniards set
it up and the great fortress of Gibraltar was
theirs.

To one side of the main gateway stands
a sentry, under the shelter of his " sentry's
umbrella," with his beat along the front trodden
smooth by unknown feet for untold years, and
having the whole wide parade to himself this
suffocating August day. No one who can
help it is moving anywhere : the pitiless sun
is too fierce and the time of day quite wrong.
Only those are abroad who have to be, and
even they are very few this corporal of the
guard going his rounds with his relief of two
men ; this Spaniard on his mule, shuffling
along in the dust of the broad road skirting the
parade his panniers filled with oranges, toma-
toes, bananas, and a green and a yellow melon
or two, his face burnt to dark copper, and his
eyes screwed up in the glare under his broad-
brimmed, black Spanish hat; this scrap of a.

SOME SOLDIERING 195

boy bugler who comes out on to the flat at the
top of the central steps and wakes up the echoes
by sounding the quarter for defaulters, and
then disappears into the dark, cool shade to
repeat his call at the back of this great building.

The echo of the bugle notes are repeated
elsewhere and come back from far " Oh,
come to your mother, you poor little beggar ;
oh, come to your mother, dear boy." One
wonders, watching this child, if his notes should
carry to England, whether his own mother has
a thought for him there. This scrap would
scorn such sentiment, and possibly remark,
" Not much ! " if you asked him.

But meanwhile his music and that of others
at this hour find echo here from rocks burnt
dry as pumice, and hot, silent cliffs that never
cool at this season, rising high into the blue
heavens to a height of 1400 feet right up in
some places from the level of an even bluer
sea.

Vegetation seems to be practically destroyed,
save for the palmettos, the taller palms, the
bella sombras and the pepper trees, the giant
poinsettia bushes, and the castor oil plants
with their shining leaves spread out flat in the
everlasting glare. There are no longer any
flowers the hot rocks and the fierce sun alike

196 AINSLIE GORE

have said their " No." Four months ago there
were crimson Barbadoean aloes all along the
paths at the foot of the slopes, with beds of
pelargoniums, the many - coloured hibiscus,
white daturas, clambering purple bougainvillaea,
irises and arum lilies even small patches of
green grass flecked with yellow stars. But
then the heat grew greater daily ; the air dried
up the scanty soil; and the scorching sun
came over the heights above to glare at the
face of this great, giant Rock for ten to twelve
long hours daily, till at last it went behind the
purple hills across the bay and its glassy sea,
leaving men and plants alike flagging a little
more, waiting as best they might for months
for the long-delayed coming of the rains.

Ainslie and I were sitting in his quarters in
the South Pavilion, his single window looking
out towards the great barracks, with the steep
slope of the burnt-up Rock behind them
dazzling white walls, grey barren rock, a sky
almost sapphire blue, a shade temperature of
anything over 95, and the silence of afternoon
broken only by stray bugle calls and the eternal
buzzing of flies.

We had been nearly three years on the
Rock, with only one spell of leave in the time.
In a few months more the Regiment would be

SOME SOLDIERING 197

going home, and we had been talking of that
and what these years had brought us, till at
length Ainslie had fallen asleep in his chair.
He had come off guard soon after six that
morning, which meant in this instance that he
had spent the night in his clothes and the
previous twenty-four hours in the ditch of the
fortress at the Waterport, finding what comfort
he might in ;a low, arched casemate, chiefly
occupied by an obsolete gun, and tenanted at
night by an innumerable company of rats.

He was lying back at the moment dressed
in a thin pair of white trousers and a white
silk shirt, open at the neck and turned up at
the sleeves. His legs were crossed, and one
arm had dropped, till the hand rested on the
cane matting on the floor. His face was no
longer that of a boy ; it had become stronger
and fuller of character. His frame showed
equal change. He had developed greatly.
The figure was as loose knit as formerly, but
it had become far more powerful, squarer, and
with every muscle perfectly attuned.

His appearance had always attracted atten-
tion ; few passed him now without looking
twice, for with manhood early manhood
though it still was had come increasing good
looks, a certain natural dignity of carriage, and

198 AINSLIE GORE

a charm of manner that was little less than
captivating to people of all ages and both
sex. Everyone knew him here ; all liked him
for his simple ways, his geniality and good-
humoured readiness on all occasions ; and
many loved him, where traits of character had
been discerned that were shown to very few.

If anyone ever had chance of being spoilt
Ainslie Gore had here ; but his very natural-
ness seemed to be a bulwark against anything
of the kind, and in this brilliantly happy period
of his life he remained the simple-hearted being
of many talents, who lived his days in the sun-
shine, brimful of the joy of life, keen to excel
in all he undertook first, in the case of his
profession, and then in all those many interests
which he either created for himself or with
which he had been naturally endowed.

Such a personality as his was certain to be
surrounded by temptations from which more
ordinary men are wholly free. He could, for
instance, do many things that others could
not, and do them very well, and for this reason
he was in some quarters 'courted and made
much of, as well as flattered not a little. At
first he never noticed it. As soon as he did,
he laughed at it all as a joke : the snare had
lost its power to harm him then. Had he,

SOME SOLDIERING 199

however, been inclined to succumb to the
many dangers that waylaid him, there was an
all-sufficient antidote in the system existing in
his famous Regiment. He had joined with
what many might have thought the highest
of credentials, as a former member of the
Eton Eleven. But when the cricketing season
opened here, with the customary match of a
regimental team against the next twenty-two,
that new-comers might show their form, Ainslie
was relegated to the twenty- two, while I, a
poor performer, was placed for the nonce in
the eleven.

We never got him out that afternoon, on the
level stretch of sand and scanty turf lying
between the two seas at the North Front,
the match being long afterwards referred to
by reason of a remark he made. He was not
sent in to bat until several wickets had fallen,
and was perfectly well aware that he was on
his trial. There was a quiet smile on his face
when he reached the wicket that reminded me
of earlier days, and I felt confident therefore
what would come. He just looked round at
the field, and then in the same over, hit a six
and two fours in three consecutive balls from
the best regimental bowler.

" I'm awfully sorry," he said, when he had

200 AINSLIE GORE

run the last out, and as if almost indignant
" but I can't help it, if you will keep bowling
me half-volleys on my legs ! " Point heard it
and passed it on to his cover when "Over"
was called ; and so it went the round of the
field and some laughed.

Ainslie naturally always played for the
eleven after that, as everyone knew he would
from the first. His being placed in the twenty-
two had possibly been meant as a reminder
that, here, everyone began at the bottom,
irrespective of his position elsewhere, and no
matter who he was or had been. No doubt
we grew in time quietly proud of some of his
performances with the bat ; but there was
rarely any applause or patting on the back
amongst us, the view taken being that the
individual worked for the credit of the whole,
and not for the eleven or the side only, but
more especially for the Regiment. The suc-
cess of the individual thus became, by general
consent, merged in the doings of the rest, just
as it might, for instance, when the matter in
hand would be very different when honour
called for straightest leading, and tradition
claimed her final sacrifice.

Sport of all kinds was encouraged amongst
us, and in our Colonel at the time we had a

SOME SOLDIERING 201

man who was well fitted to lead. He came
of a great family ; he had seen much service :
and now in these later years of his command
had set himself to make his battalion all that
it should be, from top to bottom. In this way,
and being unmarried, as in fact we all were
at this period, it was his custom to have his
younger officers much with him, and on Sunday
afternoons especially, two or three of us would
accompany him in a climb to the highest points
of the Rock, or go with him for a long walk
elsewhere. On parade he was severe ; but at
other times, while there was never any famili-
arity, he was, out of doors, just one of us,
joining the rest in everything. No truer,
cleaner-hearted man ever wore uniform, and he
made the Regiment, in one sense, what it was
a happy family.

Being a wise man, our Colonel never showed
favouritism. He was very quick in forming
his opinions. For Ainslie he had a great
liking from the first, and also thought highly of
him, professionally. Years afterwards, he said
to me " He was a dear good fellow and one
of the smartest officers I ever had, and I
always hoped to make him my adjutant. He
had brains, you see ; and his ultimate success
was certain at least, I always thought so."

202 AINSLIE GORE

When Ainslie first joined and came out to
the Rock, the hunting season was in full swing
with the Calpe hounds, and having been brought
up to such pursuit from childhood, he set to
work at once to find a horse. It was a point
of honour in the Regiment that all should hunt
when not on duty, and as the first and second
whips of the pack were two of our number we
generally mustered in great force.

The country was strange after the Berkeley
vale, whether in the Cork Woods or the
Alcadeza Crags. There was no fencing, and
crossing cultivated ground was strictly for-
bidden. But if much of it was impossible
riding, there was always a far better chance of
breaking neck and limbs than in any country
in England, and ample room for horsemanship
and daring in this jolly company of soldiers.
Mounted on " General Prim " and properly
turned out, as most of us were, in a red coat,
Ainslie was rarely absent on the two days a
week that hounds were out. He rode quietly
and well, in a field that contained many good
men, and just before the season closed, was
fortunate one day in confirming the opinion
that some had formed of him.

It came about in this way. Tropical rain
had been falling, and the field had dwindled to

SOME SOLDIERING 203

a score, when we found ourselves in a country
scarcely rideable for its steep crags and boulder-
strewn slopes. Ainslie had learnt something
of the science of hunting on the days when he
had handled the Eton beagles, and being totally
fearless, had on this occasion, and when hounds
were running, come down the well - known
Devil's Staircase in the Alcadezas, to find him-
self at the bottom alone with the hounds. For
a moment in the valley, they were at fault ;
but making a cast forward and hitting off the
line, Ainslie had already run into his fox when
the huntsman as reckless a rider in this
country as might be seen reached him, with
"Well, well, Sir! wherever did yer learn
that, then?"

Nobody said much to Ainslie at the time,
whatever they may have said among themselves.
The Master, who hailed from the Bicester
country, looked at him, and contented himself
for the moment with a grunt of approval ; but
when the next season opened, Ainslie was
charged with the important duties of earth-
stopper, an office in a country such as this
involving much work on non-hunting days. Of
course he threw his whole heart into it, that
the sport here might be improved ; and so
keen was he on many occasions that he was

204 AINSLIE GORE

regarded by some as being almost as good as
a terrier in drawing a fox, his hands bearing
many scars in consequence.

It was no uncommon sight, when a gallop
had ended in a run to ground, and much
time had been expended with crowbar, pick
and shovel instruments always brought into
the field by his assistant, ex-Gunner Jim for
Ainslie to go half to ground himself, leaving
little showing but his boots. And on one
occasion, when the tongs were missing from
Jim's miscellaneous outfit, I well recollect his
being pulled out from a hole, bringing with
him, to the amusement of the field, the fox
himself gripped tightly by the cheeks.

Ainslie ran his horse that year in the regi-
mental steeplechase, but failed to win a place.
He had expected nothing else, " General
Prim " having had a hard season and being
little better than a bag of bones. But that
race must be won, and the possibility of win-
ning it became from this time forward one of
the dearest wishes of his heart, no less than the
wish of his old father at home.

It was not a question of money and buying
the best horse, with somebody else to train it

SOME SOLDIERING 205

and yet another to ride, the conditions being
that the horse entered should have been
regularly hunted by the owner during the
previous season, and be ridden in the race
either by the owner himself or a brother officer.
There were no stakes. The winner had his
name engraved on the cup, and the last man
in had to stand champagne at dinner to the
rest.

That summer Ainslie took short leave more
than once, and visited Tangier, trying horses
there with me on the sands at three o'clock in
the morning on one occasion, though without
purchasing. Then he went to Seville, and
finally finding what he wanted at Jerez,
christened his new mount "Jerezano." The
new horse was no beauty ; few of the Spanish
horses of that date being much to look at. He
could jump, and under Ainslie's tuition was
taught to jump better, his owner, moreover,
never sparing him when hunting began and
his duties as earth-stopper made heavy de-
mands upon his stud. I do not think the
desire to win the race had often been absent
from Ainslie's mind, when February came
round again and the Meeting was fixed for the
last three days of the month. He knew that
he would have two of the best jockeys in the

206 AINSLIE GORE

Service against him, and that " Jerezano" was
not thought fast enough to win ; but if he was
beaten well, so let it be : he would try again.

The course was laid out in the neighbour-
hood of Campamento, advantage being taken
of a stream at the bottom of a rocky gully for
the water jump, and the fences being either
built-up banks or constructed of telegraph poles
and hurdles interlaced with gorse. Ainslie had
two mounts on the first day and one on the
second, scoring one win. When the time
arrived for what was, to us, the principal
event on the card on the third day of the
Meeting, nineteen horses went to the post a
crowd that was certain to be thinned at the
first four fences.

Ainslie's place was second from the left, if
I recollect rightly, for he remarked to me
" A poor place ; nine horses out of ten swerve
to the left, so we must look out."

The remark proved prophetic. At the very
first fence, his neighbour changed the spot
more than once at which he meant to take it,
necessarily communicating his indecision to, his
horse and upsetting the field behind him. The
final result was that he cannoned into Ainslie
just as " Jerezano " was landing, and threw both
horse and rider to the ground. Nor did mis-

SOME SOLDIERING 207

fortune stop here, for in getting up " Jerezano "
struck his rider in the face, cutting one lip
badly and knocking out a tooth, before making
off on his own account.

Ainslie was quickly on his feet, and his
horse as quickly caught by Jim the earth-
stopper, who, report said, had backed him
heavily. Once more in the saddle, his face
now smothered in blood, it looked for a mo-
ment as if all hope for him was at an end,
especially as the rest of the field were already
approaching the second fence ahead. But
calling " Let go ! " Ainslie set out on his
stern chase, "riding " as Jim subsequently con-
tinued to repeat many times "that cool an'
quiet like, an' for all the world as if nothin'
hadn't happened to un, bless yer. Ther', I
knew'd he was a right un ; course I did ! "

Such a lead was not to be overhauled in a
minute ; but slowly and surely, Ainslie con-
tinued to creep up, till just after passing the
Stand for the first time, and amidst the re-
sounding cheers of the company, he reached
his horses. It was anybody's race after that,
five horses being still together at the last
fence but one. The favourite, " Saracen," drew
out when this had been negotiated, with
" Jerezano " lying just behind him, There was

2o8 AINSLIE GORE

a fall in the ground all the way to the last
obstacle, and the rider of " Saracen " con-
tinued to put on the pace, while "Jerezano"
was being obviously steadied by his jockey.
The two were not more than a length apart
when they landed into the straight. Then
Ainslie sat down and rode for all that he was
worth, the verdict of the judge a moment later
being " * Jerezano/ by half a length."

The win was popular, for all reasons ; and
one visitor who had come out to the Rock in
his yacht, and who was known on many a
course in England, was heard to remark after-
wards to his Excellency, the Governor " I
have seldom seen anything prettier than the
way in which that boy, if I may call him so,
steadied his horse for the last fence it was
the boy that won the race, not the horse ! "

But while such doings naturally brought him
into prominence in the society of the place and
he became well known among the officers of
the different corps of the Garrison, he had also
been, from the first, gradually acquiring a
position in the minds of the non-commissioned
officers and men of his own corps. To begin
with, when he joined he knew his drill perfectly,
and instead, therefore, of being two months on
the barrack square under the drill sergeant,

SOME SOLDIERING 209

was dismissed the first day and put on the duty
roster. It is true that the senior Major, not
being able to credit such proficiency, had,
when in command of the parade, endeavoured
to stump him by setting him problems to be
solved there and then by moving the men ; but
he altogether failed, and the men themselves
took due note of the fact.

Then again, he was gifted with an excellent
word of command, his voice being extraordin-
arily clear and carrying far, with a perfect
grasp of that subtle point, interval, and without
any trace of hesitation. As time went on, he
was now and then to his infinite delight
deputed to take the adjutant's parade, the men
working beautifully under his hand on these
occasions, and this being no idle assertion on
my part, but a fact noted by all of us at the
time.

Perhaps they felt they knew him, in the
same way that he was getting to know and to
understand them their light-heartedness and
generosity, the spirit and the sterling qualities
that distinguished the large majority of them,
the pitfalls that surrounded them. He had
the rare faculty of never forgetting a name,
and as an Eton boy it had been the amusement
of his school-fellows to get him to stand at the

O

2io AINSLIE GORE

door and name those who passed along the
street an achievement in which he was rarely
at fault, being also generally able to add the
boy's house and the name of his tutor. So
here, with as many as three hundred on these
parades, he was often able to call a man by
name, and if it was a common name to add
the letter of his Company.

I know that he was always thinking of the
men, and while being too junior in rank and
service to initiate fresh departures himself, he
was at the disposal of anybody at any time, in
such entertainments as " Sing-songs " and Regi-
mental theatricals. Comic songs were some-
what painful things to him, but he was content
to remain at the piano for the greater part
of the evening, playing accompaniments and
bringing some refinement into them, checking
vulgarity of all kinds at rehearsals, and now
and then singing a really fine song himself or
playing something "just to raise the standard
a bit." The men grew to know him exactly,
and were perfectly aware that, with him, any-
thing of coarseness was hateful, just as was
obscenity and bad language. He never rated
a man or abused him when he heard anything
of the kind ; but his eyes would darken, and
throwing his head somewhat back, he would

SOME SOLDIERING 211

say quite quietly " I wish you would drop
that while I am here and also when I'm

not."

" Of course you and I can't do much," he
said to me one day. "This place may be, in
some ways, the best quarter out of England
for us ; but just look at it for these fellows.
They are simply cooped up here within the
narrow limits of the town and the two main
roads, being never even allowed up the Rock,
much less off it. Then, look at the never-end-
ing round of guards and sentry-go, as often as
not giving them no more than four nights in
bed, and in a climate like this, with every
devilry round the corner waiting for them to
their ruin. Can you wonder at the drink and
these eternal fines, and what a pass till mid-
night sometimes means in the morning ? I tell
you, I often feel half ashamed in going through
the barracks in hunting kit, or when riding
out, as we all do, into the country." *

I cannot hope to record each of his many
schemes as time went on, and how he narrowly
escaped getting into trouble himself through
his outspokenness on several occasions. He

1 It is fair to say that the conditions mentioned here are now
greatly modified. At the date spoken of Gibraltar was guarded
as though besieged, five officers and many hundreds of men
being on guard daily, besides pickets and other details.

212 AINSLIE GORE

learnt here by making mistakes, as he had
learnt in his home in earlier days ; and if now
and again his actions were misunderstood, he
had a happy way of enlisting the sympathy of
those in authority, approaching them with that
irresistible manner of his, and laying his
suggestions before them in such a manner that
the initiative might appear to be theirs when
the proposals finally took form.

It would be wholly false, if not indeed ridicu-
lous, to suggest that the improvements in the
general lot of the soldier on the Rock at this
time were primarily due to him. Reform was
in the air, and he merely chanced, having
always been something of a reformer, to be-
come one of the active agents in what was
going on, and occasionally to take the lead.
" I don't know much about cooking," he would
say, with a merry laugh and a twinkle in his
eye " except what I learnt in the boys' kitchen
at my Dame's, inferno of an evening that it
was ! They say we have got to begin with the
men's stomachs make a change in the baked
and boiled on alternate days, and give them
something more than the bowl of stewed tea
and bit of bread between dinner one day and
breakfast the next. I am all for that ; but my
line will be to get up their appetites outside,

SOME SOLDIERING 213

so that they may do justice to the fare when
they return ! "

He had, from the first, taken to play with and
coach the men of his Company at cricket and
football ; being something more than a pro-
ficient at both games. He was also one of
those who worked at this time for boating to
be allowed, and permits to be given for fishing.
Once again, he could play an efficient part
here, and could prove himself to be a better
man than nine out of ten he met, though
always unconscious of this himself. The in-
fluences of his Eton life came to the fore, and
what he had learnt in the historic Playing
Fields and on the placid waters of the Thames,
was bearing fruit in the pitiless summer glare
of this great Rock and the blue waves that
laved its feet.

In one other direction, however, he was
certainly personally responsible for what was
a new departure here. The Regiment was
lying in the Casemate Barracks, and the wide
ditch of the inner lines of the fortress boasted
there some scanty soil. With the permission
of those in authority he started gardening for
his Company. There were three things, he
knew, that never failed to appeal to the man
in the ranks, and if the first two were children

214 AINSLIE GORE

and dumb animals, the other was undoubtedly
a garden, even though the ground available
were merely a few feet in extent. So the old
truth, that the first thing an Englishman does,
the world over, is to make himself a garden,
received further confirmation here, and from
Ainslie's small beginnings and the prizes
offered in his Company, gardening came into
general fashion on the Rock.

The whole length of that wide ditch at the
Casemates held, in course of time, a continuous
series of miniature gardens, neatly bordered
by the whitewashed stones that are always a
part of the business, and the stern lines of the
fortifications were changed. People riding in
from the country would stand on the draw-
bridges and look, before passing into the
tunnelled ways giving access to the fortress ;
and what they saw was a number of men in
their shirt-sleeves, either contemplating, pipe
in mouth, the result of their efforts to grow
Sutton's vegetable seeds in Gibraltar, or tend-
ing such flowers as the sun suffered to live on
this shady side of the great walls with bird-
cages hung here and there on nails, and the
smaller children brought out from the stifling
heat of the congested married quarters to play
where they had never been before.

SOME SOLDIERING 215

Ainslie was often down there himself in
an unostentatious way, full of cheeriness, and
evincing the keenest interest in all that he was
shown. The old ideals were as strong in him
as ever : in these gardens there was an appeal
for beauty, just as in children's gardens on the
sands of the sea shores of far off England, and
beauty, the great civilising agent, would make
answer mutely. What was being done here
was not much, yet it would tell up in the
greater whole. Barrack life was necessarily
rough, with men in hundreds, crowded by
twenties and thirties into dark and unlovely
rooms. It could hardly be otherwise, ap-
parently. But each individual digging and
planting here would gather something. Each
was a unit in a greater whole, and a still
greater whole beyond that. And the one and
the other were capable of being made better by
those influences that were at work here, now
and always and that were even more potent
than that spirit of discipline and obedience,
whose business it was to prepare for the great
and, it might be, final call. He would often
talk to me in such a strain, and with that
touch of seriousness that had been always a
part of him.

Sometimes, when he looked round these

216 AINSLIE GORE

men's gardens, he would purposely bring a
lady or two with him, that at least some of the
men might hear the sound of a lady's voice.

" Come along and see our gardens " he
would say to these " You must come ; and
when you get there you must say a word to the
men. Don't forget that these fellows are giving
the best years of their lives in your service. A
word or two of kindly interest coming from
you will make them happy for hours. Don't
be shy of them. I know there are rough ones
among them perhaps as rough as can be. It
always seems to me, however, that the first
thing we have got to do with even the worst,
is to try and make them proud of themselves,
and you can only do that by showing that you
yourself are proud of them."

His very earnestness was infectious, and
many who had hung back came forward and
helped, so-called soldiers' gardens spreading,
in time, wherever a few square feet of soil could
be found. The majority never knew who had
started the idea, and Ainslie would have
laughed contemptuously had such been men-
tioned. But, once again, the men knew, and
put a mark in their minds on that score.

Ainslie went home on three months' leave
during our second hot season on the Rock ;

SOME SOLDIERING 217

and when he returned, took up all his interests
with increasing vigour. His Colour- Sergeant
told me afterwards that he verily believed
some of the men had been counting the days,
and that the Company's rooms seemed to
brighten up when he reappeared.

It goes without saying that the Band had
always occupied a considerable place in his
affections, exercising the same spell over him
that soldiers' bands had always done. As
soon as his musical gifts were discovered, he
was put on the Band committee at once, and
from that moment spared neither his time nor
his money in working it up to the highest
pitch of perfection ; getting additional acting
bandsmen sanctioned ; augmenting the Band
fund ; and purchasing the best instruments,
that the tone of the wood or the brass and
the whole volume of sound might be enriched.

I often used to watch his face when the band
was playing in the stillness of the evening, and
knew well what was passing in his mind. He
would [frequently "get away at such times by
himself, and never cared to talk, even when
the item on the programme was ended.

There was in the ranks of the band at that
date a man who possessed a tenor voice of
altogether exceptional quality. As soon as

218 AINSLIE GORE

Ainslie discovered it, he arranged, when our
Band performed at night on the Alameda, that
this man should sing a song as part of the
regular performance, and just before " God
save the Queen " at the close. The song was
always the same, and the effect was such, in
the cooler air after the heat of the day in the
shadows of the pepper trees and the light of
the moon that hundreds came to listen, lodg-
ing themselves on the walls above the rippling
sea.

The words were William Henley's " Eng-
land, my England," and the music was Ainslie's
own, played by the full band. I never think of
those nights, now, without recalling the third
verse :

" Ever the faith endures,

England, my England :
Take and break us : we are yours,

England my own !
Life is good and joy runs high
Between English earth and sky :
Death is death ; but we shall die

To the song on your bugles blown,

England
To the stars on your bugles blown I "

Before the end of that summer, one of the
worst epidemics of fever known for years

SOME SOLDIERING 219

visited the Rock. So severe was the visita-
tion that the whole of our Regimental staff
succumbed, the Regiment being for a time in
command of a Captain. One of our officers
died and several men, among them being our
singer : the health of many others was impaired
for life.

Whenever any of his own men were sick,
Ainslie had always made it his business to
visit them in hospital, and I know that at this
time he frequently spent many hours there,
talking to those confined to bed and sometimes
writing their letters ; reading to the con-
valescents, or sitting with a group of figures
clad in hospital blue, in such scraps of shade
as might be found in front of that great build-
ing. He was at all times totally without self-
consciousness, and having L been accustomed
all his life to mix freely with the people of the
land and go in and out of their cottages, he
could enter these wards without shyness and
talk to these men in their own tongue of the
home interests that he knew were dear to
them.

I remember well his coming back from the
hospital on the evening that our singer died.
He spoke almost indignantly, as his habit
was when he felt things keenly. "Yes," he

220

AINSLIE GORE

repeated " he has gone, like the others!
And who shall say that he has not given his
message ? I see his age was only twenty-six ;
but don't ever think that the value of a life is
to be estimated by the tale of the years. That
is quite wrong. I tell you a child may leave
things of beauty behind it, and more powerful
for good, than the actions of many a hundred
men. So here, in the case of this man of ours.
Do you think people will forget his song ?
never ! " and there was something of a choke
in his voice as he finished.

Life the life of the individual was always
regarded by Ainslie in the light of a work of
art. His own, like everyone's, had been
planned by his Creator ; but he believed that
the planning had been merely the outline, and
that it fell to him, as to all men, to fill in the
detail, to perfect the whole. The time allowed
might be long, or it might be short. That did
not signify. Time was a factor that pertained
to our world ; and some works of art might be
marred by an overplus of time being devoted
to them. Beauty lay primarily in simplicity,
and the beauty that was itself imperishable
would be attained when time ceased. Flaws
there must be, marring again and again the
outward symmetry of the plan ; but here, once

SOME SOLDIERING 221

more, there came to man's aid another thing
of divine beauty the undying promise of
ultimate forgiveness. Unless I am mistaken,
this was what always influenced him on the
more serious side of his character, and that lay
at the root of his keenest endeavours of the
perennial hope that never left him.

I have said before that the religious sense
was strong in him. I have certainly never
known anyone more punctilious about fulfilling
what he considered the very profession of his
creed necessarily entailed. He seldom spoke
of such things, even to me. His life spoke for
itself. And others knew it. More than once
I fancied that I noticed in those whose lives
would not have borne close scrutiny, a certain
shyness when in his company. He never
spoke of such, and he very rarely criticised.
"Fault-finding is easy," he would say. "Any
fool can do that. The job is not to do it.
And I always try to remind myself of what
I read once, somewhere in Goethe ' I see
no fault in others of which I have not
myself been guilty.' Well put for most of
us, isn't it?"

As an instance of how strongly he felt that
religion was a necessity to all, and at the same
time how fully he realised that if it was to be

222 AINSLIE GORE

made attractive to the multitude in its outward
form, brightness must be brought into church
services by every possible means, the following
may be given.

On moving up to South Barracks from the
Casemates, our place of worship became the
great school above the New Mole Parade.
By some it was called South Barrack Chapel,
though not a consecrated building. Ainslie no
sooner grasped the situation than he asked his
Colonel's permission to make use of some of
the bandsmen. He wished to form a choir.
The band boys could all sing or learn to do
so, and with them, and eighteen or twenty
instrumentalists, more brightness might be
brought into the parade services on Sunday
mornings. He had sung in his village choir
from boyhood, and was determined to see what
he could do here.

There were rigorous rules, as he soon found,
regarding what might be sung at these services,
and the Psalms and responses were not among
the number. So much the worse. He would
get his music in somehow, and cast round at
once to see how this might be done, being
never tired of asserting that music was the
most powerful to influence of all the arts.

A new Chaplain had been lately placed in

SOME SOLDIERING 223

charge of the South District who possessed
the gift of addressing men. Ainslie went to
him and suggested a voluntary service on
Sunday evenings throughout the winter, offer-
ing at the same time to find a choir. When
the matter was arranged and the trammels of
red tape here again finally negotiated, he never
failed, when off duty, to attend the practices
of this choir, and in fact trained those who
came himself, and all of whom gave their
services voluntarily. Many of the members
were his own bandsmen, under the Band
Sergeant ; but among the singers were men
of different corps, as well as always Ainslie
himself. The Psalms and responses were sung
at these services, and hymns were numerous,
with occasionally an Anthem when the choir
had attained to some proficiency.

Once again he tried his best to interest out-
siders here in what was being done, keeping
the religious side and his own part in the
matter in the background altogether. He
discovered a certain boy in the band who
possessed an excellent voice, and set to work
to train him with the utmost care in various
solo parts. A little later, I heard him saying
to a group we met on the Walls " If you
want to hear a good thing, come up to South

224 AINSLIE GORE

Chapel on Sunday evening. We have got a
boy he's very fat and is called Samson who
sings ' Oh for the wings, for the wings of a
dove,' just first-class you must come and hear
him : don't forget." They came, and came
again, and in time it was no uncommon sight
to find a congregation there numbering close
upon five hundred, and one moreover made up
almost entirely of soldiers, with a sprinkling of
their wives and children.

It might be supposed that Ainslie was
* rapidly becoming exceptionally popular by all
that he was doing. In the common accepta-
tion of the term he was nothing of the kind,
the qualities that marked him in so many ways
not making for such, and he himself never
courting popularity. He was still the dreamer
he had always been ; he was reserved as ever,
and retained all his earlier love of solitude.
He was often to be seen going out or returning
from a ride by himself, and, as often, sitting
reading in a quiet corner of the library of the
Garrison. At all times, when out and about,
there was alertness in his every movement,
accompanied usually by a quick action of the
head and a keen look in the grey eyes. Even

SOME SOLDIERING 225

on the hottest days he walked quickly, giving
others the impression that he was on some
definite errand. I do not think I ever saw
him idle, and certainly never knew him " loaf" ;
his interests were too many, and his desire to
be up and doing too keen.

There is no doubt that his profession always
came first with him. He qualified early for pro-
motion, attending many courses on a variety
of subjects and generally distinguishing him-
self where examinations were entailed. Among
other things he had acquired a useful know-
ledge of Spanish that often stood him in good
stead as earth-stopper, and had also steeped
himself in local history, constantly picturing the
struggles of Nations that this mighty Rock had
witnessed.

Then again, the romance that he had woven
about a soldier's calling in his youth never lost
its hold on him, but rather increased in power
and intensity, even the monotonous round of
duty and the daily life of the barrack square
being powerless to deprive him of those ideals
that he kept always steadily before his mind.
To him, this was the resting and the training
time. The latent strength was there just the
same. Only the call was wanting to bring the
whole to life. Here, in this fighting machine,

226 AINSLIE GORE

was invincibility, the inheritance of centuries ;
and when that call came, this Regiment of
which he was so proud, would justify itself and
add a still more glorious page to its history.
Such things to him were a certainty.

It was only on rare occasions that he would
talk in such a strain. For the most part he
kept his dreams and fantasies almost wholly to
himself, being fully aware that those about him
cared for nothing of the kind. He could meet
these friends on commoner ground elsewhere
meet them and engage with them in all their
sports and games, pursuits or undertakings
whatsoever meet them in full eagerness, be-
cause contests of all kinds gave zest to life
and the spirit of rivalry was to him congenial.
Thus, while on one side he might be a mystic,
a poetic dreamer, on the other he was always
the man of action, with cool indifference and
finest pluck that was never daunted, though
the things to be faced were the gravest that
might come.

Looked at as a whole, it was not perhaps
surprising that some failed to understand this
being of many tastes and many talents and
no less strange ideals. There was something
altogether uncommon about this Ainslie Gore,
and even to those of his own age he was not

SOME SOLDIERING 227

exactly one they looked to make their close
and intimate friend. He seemed sometimes
to be living a life apart from theirs, though
going with them often hand in hand. Thus
some were, in a way, shy of him his tastes
puzzled them, his talents made them, in a sense,
afraid, his exuberant energy overwhelmed
them, his serious views of life belonged to a
world that was to many here unknown.
, So far as he was himself concerned, he was
certainly not one of those to whom a host of
friends was a necessity. To him, friendship
was something sacred and akin to a love, and
he could not therefore give this love to many.
Yet he was by no means deficient in largeness
of heart and ready sympathy on all occasions.
I should say that he spent half his life in doing
acts of kindness of which more than half the
world about him never dreamed. Enlist his
sympathy, ask his aid, and he was an enthusiast
at once, and one that would not spare himself.
In a sense he was the friend of all ; but he re-
mained throughout his life the intimate of few,
giving to these his love whole-heartedly and
without possibility of change.

I have more than once spoken of the way
his men regarded him. He had won the affec-
tion of many among them, and one and all

228 AINSLIE GORE

trusted him. His reputation throughout the
ranks, I found out later, exceeded that of most
of us. And if this gradually widened during
these years, a circumstance arose at this time
that added to it immeasurably in the eyes of
the rank and file.

The epidemic of fever already referred to,
had seriously reduced the number of officers
available for duty. Many had been invalided
home, and Ainslie, like several other subalterns,
found himself left in charge of his Company,
with the prospect of having to take it through
the annual course of musketry at the North
Front Camp in a few weeks' time. Companies
were located at this hutment in turn, and it
was during the period he had to spend there
that Ainslie found himself suddenly in a position
of some difficulty, if not indeed danger.

Among the men of his command was one
possessed of a violent temper, and who shall be
known here by the name of Clancy. Ainslie
had often befriended this man, and had stood
up for him on more than one occasion when he
chanced to get into serious trouble, though he
always felt that he had never really won him.
Clancy's comrades no doubt considered him
dangerous ; but they liked him and knew him
for a good soldier, admiring his bull-necked

SOME SOLDIERING 229

strength and courage, and possibly considering
that a company made up of men of his stamp
would be likely to prove invincible on service.
Had it not been for his temper, Clancy would
long before this have been promoted : his fail-
ing was his curse, and on this occasion nearly
landed him in gaol.

It happened one morning, at the 600 yards
range, that Clancy had to fire last. He lay
down, pulled trigger and missed. Loading
again, he did the same, and Ainslie went over
to him. " The bally gun won't shoot," growled
the man, with many an oath added " Missed
every shot but one at the last something-or-
other range, and now it's same here."

"Not shoot?" said Ainslie. "Get up and
let me try." It was the custom with us when
any man complained of his weapon to fire with
it at once ; so Ainslie took the rifle, steadied
himself for a moment and fired, the signalling
disk showing that he had scored an inner,
missing the bull's-eye by a few inches. " There
is nothing wrong with the gun ; try again,"
he said quietly.

Once more, Clancy went down, looking black
as thunder. The two sections in rear, with the
sergeants keeping the registers, stood silently
waiting for the result, and perhaps scenting

2 3 o AINSLIE GORE

trouble. Again there was the crack of the
rifle, followed by no movement in the marker's
butt : the shot had once more missed the target.
The next instant, the man had taken the rifle
by the muzzle, flung it from him, and then
stood there trembling.

" March the sections home," said Ainslie.
"Stand fast this man and you, Colour-Sergeant,
and the right file of this section. March off.
Now go and fetch that rifle," he added, turning
to Clancy. The man never moved. Once
more Ainslie gave his order. The man's
fingers were twitching ; but he still never
moved, and at the same time the Colour-
Sergeant, as if doubtful, placed himself be-
tween the youthful officer and the man. For a
moment it looked as if Clancy would attack
the rest of those present. " March him to the
Guard Room and confine him," said Ainslie, at
last. The man found his tongue then ; but he
obeyed and was marched away, one of the
spare markers bringing in the rifle.

The men in the huts were all agog. (( Here
he comes," said one, " being taken to the
Guard Room, see yonder." " For ole Joe ;
wull there, he done hisself in this time, and no
mistake," said another " That temper o' his '11

SOME SOLDIERING 231

bring un to the gallows, if he don't mind."
" It's a District this time, and two years hard,"
remarked a man busy cleaning his belts, to be
corrected by his neighbour with " Go on with
yer I tell yer it's a Gineral and five years
penal. Once on that Guard Report you don't
come off, and this here's insubordination."
" Mut'ny, yer means," broke in another.

The men in several of the nearest huts were
craning out of the windows, watching the party
coming across the sandy flat, with the officer
following some way behind ; and the spare
marker farther away still, carrying Clancy's
rifle. They had nearly reached the white,
dusty road leading to the Neutral Ground
the only one to pierce the English Lines
when they were seen to halt, and the officer to
be catching them up.

"Tain't unlike a funeral," remarked one of
the lookers on ; " we none of us shan't see ole
Joe no more." " You bide a minute," returned
another " I reckons there's summut up see ?
Where our lieutenant have got his hand in a
job, it don't always come out as usual."

Ainslie told me all about it afterwards, under
pledge of secrecy. To have to punish any
man for trivialities was to him little short of

232 AINSLIE GORE

misery. Here was a much graver case. In-
stead, therefore, of at once going to compare
the targets and complete the registers, he
followed the others in the direction of the hut-
ment, where he could see Clancy's comrades
leaning out of the windows. He knew exactly
what that meant and what those men were
saying, just as he knew the conflict that was
passing in his own mind, every step he took
the dictates of his own heart on the one hand,
and the paramount claims of duty on the
other.

He called to the party to halt at last, and
came up with them. " Turn about," he said,
when he reached them. Then he broke out
with " Are you going to disgrace the Regi-
ment before the whole Garrison ? I know that
I am not going to let you do anything of the
kind. Do you want to sentence yourself to
penal servitude? You won't do that, if I can
help it. I'll give you another chance: take it
or leave it ; it rests with you."

Clancy's fingers began twitching again, and
his eyes wandered over the cliffs of the great
Rock and then he cast them on the sun-burnt
ground. Ainslie did not wait for the man's
answer, but added to the Sergeant " March

SOME SOLDIERING 233

him back to the firing point, and then send one
of the men to warn the markers in the butts.
He has only two shots to go."

The Sergeant, a man who wore three medal
ribbons and had many years' service, dropped
behind for an instant, and muttered to Ainslie
" I'm an old soldier, Sir, and you'll pardon
me ; but if you gives this man back his rifle an'
he misses, he'll turn it on to you and blow your
brains out. I know the man, Sir, and he's
vi'lent."

"Think so," said Ainslie.

Five minutes later Ainslie had handed the
man his rifle and made him get into position
"Take time," he said "don't be in a hurry.
I want to see you make a bull." Clancy looked
savage still ; but the cloud had already gone
partly from his face as he looked up for an
instant at the young officer stooping over him.
Then he took aim. " Crack," went the rifle,
and up went the white disk. Ainslie's hope
had been realised.

" I think we had better say as little about
this as possible," remarked Ainslie to his
Colour-Sergeant, after he had visited the butts
and signed the registers. They were walking
back to the camp together, Clancy having gone

234 AINSLIE GORE

on with the other men, his rifle once more on
his shoulder.

" Strike me blind if I ever see'd such a thing
as that!" ejaculated one of the men, leaning
out of the hut windows in his shirt-sleeves,
when the party was seen once more to be
returning.

A bugler boy came out on to the steps in the
full blaze of the late afternoon sun, and having
filled his small lungs sounded " Come for
Orders." Ainslie stirred in his chair and
opened his eyes. The world outside was
coming to life again and people were beginning
once more to move about. A fresh sentry
had just relieved the former one at the main
entrance, and being fresh after a sleep on the
plank bed in the guard room, was tramping
his beat, his red jacket showing up brightly
against the glare of the white walls, and his
bayonet catching the glint of the sun when
he turned. He had two hours before him, and
plenty of time to tramp. When his turn came
to be relieved, the evening gun would fire a
thousand feet above, pickets would be falling
in and fifes and drums would be beating " Re-

SOME SOLDIERING 235

treat" the old familiar sounds travelling up
the face of the Rock as they had done for
nigh two centuries, finding their echoes there,
and telling their stones at the close of yet one
more long-drawn day.

The sun had already set when Ainslie and I
emerged from the sun-baked South Pavilion,
and on all sides there was stillness. We stood
for a while looking across the placid waters of
the bay all green and gold to the purple
hills of Algeciras.

" I had such a dream just then, lying in that
chair," said Ainslie. "All comes of looking
through Drinkwater and Sayer and ever so
many other volumes yesterday on guard. I
really believe I must have gone through, in
the time, all the events of the three years and
seven months and twelve days that the great
siege of this place lasted. And what a story
it was ! To think of these quarters of ours
having stood, then, just as they are now.
Those fellows must have all been heroes, even
if there were bad ones among them. Just
picture what they had to go through attacked
by fire-ships and bumboats, night after night,
bombarded from sea and land, eaten up with
scurvy and fever, the water scanty and bad,

236 AINSLIE GORE

and such provisions as they had going rotten
in the heat, the town almost destroyed and in
flames again and again, and starvation staring
them in the face.

" Then again, imagine the whole population
crowding together up there, at Europa Flats,
when first Rodney's fleet, and then Darby's,
and then Howe's were sighted, bringing them
at long intervals some temporary relief; picture
that crowd of half-starved beings men, women,
and children sick at heart, and yet raising
cheer on cheer at the sight of those fleets in
The Gut. And then, think of the inferno of
that last attack, by specially constructed ships
and the whole weight of the fleets of France
and Spain ; with that other concourse of spec-
tators thronging those hills yonder that they
might witness this giant's fall the bay strewn
with wreckage far and near ; but always with
the old Rock frowning down at the whole, and
remaining impregnable still."

He was full of his old enthusiasms as he
talked, repeopling the world with heroes,
dreaming of their great deeds, and longing,
as I know, that some small chance might one
day come for him in the calling that he had
made his own.

SOME SOLDIERING 237

" But after all," he continued, " it is not the
great fights and the great deeds, any more
than the great epics, that have the most lasting
effects upon the lives of the many. I believe
the silent things drive deepest and reach
farthest. No doubt the people here were un-
able to grasp the meaning at the time ; but
I always imagine that of all the many things
this Rock has seen, the most moving must
have been the sight of the two battered ships
of the line entering this bay in just such a
light as this, perhaps, though it was the 28th
October the Neptune slowly towing in the
Victory, with Nelson's body on board."

During our last winter a stroke of luck fell
to Ainslie. One of his Excellency the Gov-
ernor's aide-de-camps went home on three
months' leave, and Ainslie was offered the
temporary billet. His Colonel demurred at
first, feeling that though he now had the re-
quisite three years' service, he was too young
for such a post ; but he was overruled, and
Ainslie took up his new duties at the Convent
under the distinguished soldier who reigned
there. His social gifts were many. He had

238 AINSLIE GORE

won his way among all classes, and now he
was to be brought into touch with the host
of visitors who came and went during these
winter months, and who belonged to every
nation under the sun.

Once again he ran the chance of being spoilt
and made over much of. His many gifts, like
his music, found their affinity in many hearts ;
he stood a splendid example of young man-
hood ; and among those who now crossed his
path, were some who were struck by the natural
simplicity that was the secret of his charm, and
who whispered together as they watched him
that there was an exceeding beauty in this
young life and sunny character pointing to
great and ultimate success.

This last was quite true ; and I think myself
that he had, by now, come near attaining the
ideal that Carlyle once held up before the eyes
of a great gathering of young men that he
had, in truth, " grown to be one all lucid and in
equilibrium healthy, clear, and free, and dis-
cerning all round about him."

By the time Ainslie's temporary appointment
came to an end our years on the Rock were
nearly over. The day before we sailed he
went to the Convent to bid the Governor
good-bye. The great soldier had always taken

SOME SOLDIERING 239

an interest in him, and on this occasion led
him down into the garden that he might talk
with him, Ainslie telling me afterwards that
his last words were these " You must go to
India as soon as you can. India is the place ;
there is practically no soldiering in England."

CHAPTER VII

THE SUMMONS

" THEY don't seem to value us very highly,"
remarked Ainslie in a loud voice, that those
standing near him might hear.

" No," shouted a brother officer, with a
laugh " but that will be revised all right if we
go to the bottom ! "

A group of us had collected on the lee side
of the main companion-way for a minute or
two : black clouds racing above, a mountainous,
leaden-coloured sea running, noise enough to
deafen, and a whole gale blowing. We were
four days out from Gibraltar, having had bad
weather all the time, and for the last day and a
half had been battened down in the Bay of
Biscay.

That afternoon we had had to destroy and
throw overboard three of our horses, these
having received such injuries as to render them
useless. At the same time all the men were
sent down to the lower decks, to lie down there

and act as ballast, this hired transport, No. 37,

24 o

THE SUMMONS 241

being some feet higher out of water than she
should have been. Our captain had applied
for coal before leaving the Rock, in order to
lower her a little ; but unfortunately for us the
Admiralty supply was just then short. So we
put to sea as we were, and moreover with a
complement of boats very far from sufficient to
accommodate the crowd of men, women and
children on board.

In the opinion of some, the seas we shipped
should have gone a long way towards remedy-
ing the lack of ballast. Nevertheless, No. 37
continued to behave like a mad thing, rolling
scuppers under and lurching so handsomely
that considerable damage was done. The
misery in the women and children's quarters
especially, and also on the troop decks, was
distressing to witness, and those of us therefore
who could keep their feet had a busy time,
both night and day.

Ainslie, I remember, though by no means a
good sailor, was indefatigable in conveying
help to all he could, setting a fine example of
cheery indifference to discomforts, and spending
a good deal of his time among the men in the
semi-darkness of that vessel's hold. Over all
that, however, it is well to draw the veil. We
weathered the gale in the Bay, and an equally

Q

242 AINSLIE GORE

bad time in the Channel, and finally, on a
February morning in 1897, disembarked at a
South coast port in a blizzard of snow that,
clad as they were and coming from a warm
climate, put many of our men into hospital.

It would have been difficult at that date to
find a finer regiment anywhere. The men, for
the most part, were of splendid physique ;
their average number of years' service was
high ; and we were fully up to our strength.
We had suffered a good deal on our short
voyage, and the damage to kit and consequent
loss to the men had been severe. But with the
mysterious faculty possessed more especially
by soldiers, and that is frequently a cause of
amazement even to those who command them,
the Regiment disembarked as spic and span as
if it had just come out of barracks ashore, and
I believe made a considerable impression upon
the inhabitants of that South coast port on
marching in.

A fate, however, awaited us that was common
then to all regiments arriving home from foreign
service. Before many weeks had passed we
scarcely knew ourselves. The splendour of
our martial bearing had largely departed. Our
Colonel's time was up, and several other officers
retired. The time-expired men took their dis-

THE SUMMONS 243

charge ; a very heavy draft was at the same
time called for, to be sent forthwith to our
other battalion in India ; and our ranks gradu-
ally became full of strange and very young
faces : the Regiment was wholly changed.

The despatch of that draft to India brought
about the first real separation between myself
and Ainslie. Three subalterns had to go with
it, and I was one of the number. At the
moment, he was disappointed that he could
not come too ; but he was wanted elsewhere,
and I know that he had already made up his
mind to take the advice he had been given,
and to obtain an exchange to India on the first
opportunity.

"I shan't be long after you," he said to me
cheerily, just before we parted. " Meanwhile,
they can't wipe us out altogether. It is im-
possible for any power on earth to do that. A
rotten system may reduce us to the condition
of ' a squeezed lemon/ and all that we see going
on just now may play Harry with us. But
you can't blot out tradition, or destroy every-
thing that rules here a regiment lives for
ever, whatever may happen to it. We shall
rise again, right enough, and break into new
life, with the old spirit about us still."

He had lost none of the hope and vigour

244 AINSLIE GORE

and "go" that had always marked him, and
if some of us had begun to feel dispirited by
what we witnessed, the effect upon him was
that of a call for further effort for still more
determined fight on his part, and always with-
out losing heart.

He came down with the draft on the day we
embarked, and spoke enthusiastically of the
future when we parted. I can see his tall
figure now, standing on the wharf, when the
rest of us were aboard the craft that was to
take us as far as Southampton. He struck me
more than ever then as the very beau ideal of
what a young soldier might be strong, clear-
eyed, possessed of a keen love of his profes-
sion and immeasurably proud of it ; fit to go
anywhere and to do anything at any moment,
and holding always by the old ideals that had
occupied his mind from boyhood onwards.

He was acting adjutant at the time, and just
before we cast off, some of the men seeing him
standing there alone, raised a cheer. Then
one among them a bull-necked, powerful-
looking man, known among the others as Joe
sung out his name, and the rest cheered him
after that more lustily than ever.

The last bell rung to clear ship, we hauled
slowly out, and he waved his hand and turned

THE SUMMONS 245

to go. I knew exactly what his feelings were
at that moment. The band on the jetty struck
up a tune of many memories. We were moving
through waters smooth as oil, and there was a
brilliant yellow light in the western sky behind
a dark mass of shipping on that still, spring
evening. For a moment there was silence,
and the cheering died away. The men crowd-
ing on the poop were listening to the band.
Then they joined in, and started singing
"Auld Lang Syne."

I had not been long in India, when the
following letter reached me from Ainslie :

" You see I am writing from Downham. I
came up here to talk to my father about a
possible exchange. It seems I can effect this
with Ronald who, as you know, is invalided
home with dysentery. Only one thing rather
sticks in my mind my dear old people seem
disappointed I should be going abroad again
so soon, though they both, I need hardly say,
put a good face on it. Of course I know very
little about how matters stand in India, though
from what fellows say and what I gather from
the papers, there seems every likelihood of a
big business on the Frontier before the year is

246 AINSLIE GORE

out. I wouldn't miss that for all the world,
and I don't think my father would mind my
going so much, if he thought there was a
chance of my seeing active service. What he
dislikes is the idea of my being stuck down in,
what he calls, 'some beastly unhealthy station,'
and asks, * What's the fun of that ? '

" My mother goes on the principle that
where a soldier is sent he must go, but there
is no reason for him to go out of his way to
look for things. I chaff her a lot when she
says that, and tell her it's all nonsense. These
are not days if there ever were such when
all one has to do is to stand in the barrack
square, complacently waiting for something to
turn up : that's rot ! So the end of it is that
my father is going up to the War Office to
see a friend or two there, get the big wigs to
sanction this exchange when it comes forward,
and also find out, if he can, whether there is
any truth in the reports the Press has got hold
of. I will wager anything he gets his way :
his cheery old face hasn't altered a bit.

" I won't talk about other things now, or
other people. I am only here for three days
and must leave again to-morrow evening. No
doubt, when the exchange is sanctioned, my
new Colonel will give me a couple of months'

THE SUMMONS 247

leave, though always with the chance of this
being cut short if I am wanted. Have you
started polo yet ? I shall have to get you to
look out for a pony or two for me. We are
getting on all right. Last week we had a
batch of men from the depot, and we are taking
a few recruits. They are not bad, though not
up to the old lot. Good-bye. A. G."

The old Squire experienced few difficulties
at the War Office, and before the end of
August the exchange was sanctioned, " pro-
vided no expense was thereby caused to the
public." In other words, Ainslie undertook to
join our battalion in India at his own charges,
and at the expiration of the two months' leave
subsequently granted him.

" Now, all we have got to do," said the
Squire to Ainslie on the night of his arrival at
Denton, his face wreathed in smiles " is just
to get our kit together and keep our eyes open
as to what is going on out there. But I don't
think we had better say much about it to your
mother time enough for that, you know time
enough for that ! Meanwhile, you must go
round all your friends here, and see what we
have been doing. I can't say there is much
improvement in the outlook. There is no end
to the reductions in rent, and the demands of

248 AINSLIE GORE

the farmers are also endless. So, one way
and another, there is not a penny comes back
out of the estate now or is likely to, so far as
I can see. But, dear me, there is no reason
for us to cry out. The property is clear of
all encumbrances, and things are bound to
come right in time bound to ; and what's
more, they will then be all right for you.
What's the use of a father if he can't see to
that!"

Ainslie told me much of such talks in his
letters at this time, speaking of his father's
continued cheerfulness and energy as splendid.
<( It isn't as if he was young," he said in one of
these " he is already over seventy, and yet
he is out and about everywhere, and has given
up none of his County work. He has dropped
hunting, of course, and for some time now ;
but talks of coming out with me on 'the First 7
to act as marker, he says, and get a shot
when he can, for we still walk all our birds, as
in old days."

" I have been here a fortnight," he writes in
another letter the following week " and think
I have made good use of my time : been
round to every farm, and seen a whole host of
old friends, on the land, and in the cottages as
well. Of course I know how difficult it is

THE SUMMONS 249

really to get at the inner thoughts of these
people. Almost all are frightfully reticent,
some keep their eyes on the main chance, and
a few are humbugs though very few, where
they realise that perhaps one knows a little
oneself.

" But apart from all that, there are folk here,
and in plenty still, who I believe are true as
steel and as honest as the day. Haven't they
known one from childhood, watched one's
foolery as a boy, and seen one grow up with
them and theirs ? Of course they have, and
they know it. And therefore when I take
their hands and look again at their honest
faces, I believe I can trust what they say, and
take their welcome in the way they mean me
to. They don't give their hearts to all and
quite rightly ; but they never swerve from
those they have really learnt to know. For
my part well, I love them all. They always
stand, in my eyes, as part of my home ; and
for my home I would give my life.

" You know my ideas on that score. Per-
haps I have inherited them from my father;
and you should just hear the people on the
place speak of him ! They honour a man of
backbone and one who shows fight ; and in
his case they have watched him closely through

250 AINSLIE GORE

all these hard times, marked things coming
lower and lower at this old house, year after
year, till the place has become silent and well-
nigh closed, and seen at the same time, what
Lawrence Allen of Compass Furlong an old
man now, himself put into words, when
chatting with me the other day.

"'Ah/ he said, 'there's one, anyways, as
never spares hisself, and acts up to what er
preaches. Our Squire hain't no afternoon
gentleman, 1 he hain't. Does uns best, he do,
straight on the nail, and goes hand in hand
wi' the rest on us come what may, rough or
smooth, wet or shine ! I reckons as no un
can't take arter a better pattern than hisn's.
An' it be my firm beliefs same as old Mr.
Drew was a-sayin' at the ordinary, last Satur-
day as ever was as when his time do come
to stick up his stick, 2 you an 1 we an' the rest
on us '11 find as he's tidied all up as it should
be, and picked up every mortal one of his
crumbs. 3 That's what our Squire be, an' your
fayther be ; an' we don't want no strangers
here ! ' And then he turned away, as he
always does, you know, ' when he's had his bit
of a say.'

1 A man who is always behindhand and neglects matters.

2 To die. 3 To tidy up work neatly.

THE SUMMONS 251

" We have got the jolliest little boy staying
here my Uncle John's son, and my godson
(think of that !) ; the said uncle and my aunt
being here too. My father has taken to the
child enormously, and no wonder. I think he
will make a rare good one. You should have
just seen the little fellow two days ago. I
took him by the hand and led him down to the
deer paddock, where ' Alice Grey ' is spending
the last years of her life. The old mare knew
my voice at once when I came back here, and
I fancy horses are like dogs in this particular,
and that they never forget. However, I called
to her, and she came out from under the shade
of the elms into the broad sunlight and put her
nose on my shoulder. And then I put little
Reggie on her back, and we went round the
paddock together ; the little fellow holding on
by the mane, not the least afraid, and indeed
laughing from sheer joy. And just then, poor
old Welfare tottered out of his garden at the
back of the stables, and seeing us, stood there
repeating more than once : ' Well there that's
just as it should be just for all the world as it
should be ! '

"This letter has run to an unconscionable
length ; but I must tell you one thing more,
from which I have been hanging back all the

252 AINSLIE GORE

time. I have been over to your people pretty
often a confession in itself! Two days ago,
I met your sister on my way. Well ; some-
thing happened. And after that we went into
that room with the big Raeburn portrait in
it. Of course I had to play. Music is some-
times responsible for a good deal, and it has
certainly been responsible for a good deal here.

" When I had finished, and was just shutting
the piano, she called out from the big sofa
* Do you remember a song you sung, years ago,
when we were all three together ? I wish you
would sing it again.' So I had to sing Ich
liebe Dick once more, and when I had finished,
I looked across the room and saw that tears
were streaming down her cheeks. Of course
she said she was not really crying, and tried
to wipe them away quickly, on my saying that
tears at such a time were a bad omen. Then
we both laughed, and agreed that omens were
rubbish and tears sometimes very silly things.

" I know you will not say anything about
this when you are writing home. Nobody
knows, and we mean to tell nobody yet. You
and I, however, have always been such close
friends, that I can't keep anything from you.
I don't think that if we are to be brought
closer together even than we have been, and

THE SUMMONS 253

what's more by the ties of relationship, we
can ever become more like brothers than all
these years of our joint lives have proved us
to be.

" You will take me, I know, in the way that
she has. And then, when the years in India
are over, and all that they may possibly bring,
I think I shall be content to hang up my sword
in the hall with the others that have hung
there long ; though mine, perhaps, may fail to
tell the stories that they do, to the Gores of
a future day.

" Mind you keep me informed as to how
things are going, and wire to me at once if
you scent trouble ahead. There is nothing to
prevent my joining before my leave is up, and
I can start at an hour's notice, my kit being
practically ready. I wouldn't miss a show for
all the world. I have dreamt of such things a
thousand times, and to be at last with the Regi-
ment in one good thing, would be supremely
splendid and what is more, might tend, as I
believe, to make one a better man. Good-bye.
Affectionately yours, A. G."

That was the last letter I ever had from
him. Things moved somewhat quickly after
that. A letter from me to him crossed this
one, and though it was destined never to reach

254 AINSLIE GORE

him, I give it here because it explains the
position of affairs in India, and how these led
shortly afterwards to his hurried departure from
his home.

" My last letter will have told you of all the
different shaves that were going the round of
camp and barrack, and it looks now as if some of
these were working out true. The Mohmands
have been misbehaving themselves, and what
is more to the point, the Afridis and Orakzai
have been playing Old Harry on the borders
and the Government is getting restive. They
can't stand such doings much longer. The
Orakzai raided Samava recently, and the Afri-
dis were in the Khyber, with Malakhand and
Chakdara attacked by the Swat Johnnies be-
fore that. It will have to be stopped, though
nothing has been settled yet, so far as we can
learn. It will be a big thing if it comes, and
all that we hear is true ; but you will realise
what fellows are when they begin to talk out
here. Plenty of time yet. There appears to
be no chance of our being warned for service,
and leave is still being granted.

" Can't write any more now. We have a
polo match to-day against the 5th, and as I am
playing, I must go round and have a look at
the ponies. Got one ripper, you know. Bought

THE SUMMONS 255

him of Charley Hay, when they were ordered
home you remember him at my Dame's, don't
you ?

"Awfully sorry I have not been able to go
on with this before. We have been rather
busy. I will tell you in a minute about that ;
but first of all we won that match, all right.
One of us hit a lucky goal in the last five
minutes. It was a deuced good game, all
through, and my new purchase played Ai.

" Well, since I began this a fortnight ago,
things have been moving a bit quick. Of
course you have had your eyes open and have
watched The Times telegrams. The Mohmand
expedition starts next week, we are told. A
bigger business than this is brewing, though,
and the Colonel has heard privately that it is
quite possible we may be wanted. We should
go up to Peshawar, though nothing is moving
at present. I will let you have a wire directly
I think you had better make a start, or you may
miss the job and where would you be then,
with all the soul-inspiring things you have been
conjuring up in your mind for years ! At
present, I picture you without thought of the
shiny East, and concentrating your powerful
intelligence upon how to get the best of those
extraordinary wild partridges of yours, with

256 AINSLIE GORE

Giles to help you, all he knows. Hope you
have been successful. Don't I wish I was
along. I heard from my sister that you had
been over to see them a time or two, and that
they hoped to get you to shoot there later.
Mind you go, or I fancy somebody may be
disappointed !

" I have just this moment heard that the
General who is to command the big show is
actually on his way out, having been home on
leave. I wonder they did not warn you at the
same time ! No symptom of any call for us yet.
It is sickening, especially as others we know are
actually on the move to Peshawar and Jumrud.
However, we are ready to jump off at any
moment, and of course they know that all right.

" I shall address my next letter to Port Said
post-office. You will be on the way very soon,
I expect, and possibly before this reaches you.
Should you get it, however, don't forget that,
failing Port Said, there will be letters for you,
for certain, at Aden, and also at Bombay if you
call at Grindlay Groom's offices in Hornby
Road. From rumours I have heard since
writing this far, I feel pretty sure I shall be
wiring to you before long, and possibly in the
next few hours, though I shall post this all the

same."

THE SUMMONS 257

Ainslie was coming back through the village
with his father when my telegram was delivered
to him. The Squire was riding his cob, and
Ainslie was walking by his side, with his gun
on his shoulder. They stopped for a moment
in the roadway when the boy caught them, and
it happened to be just in front of Susan
Mantel's little shop, so she told me later, and
"when she wer' on the point of servin' a cus-
tomer with a nice bath-brick that she werV

Ainslie read the message to himself and then
aloud to his father, thrusting it hurriedly into
his pocket, and quickening his pace so that the
Squire's cob had to jog to keep up with him.
This is how it ran, the original being before me
as he received it : it marked a red-letter day
in his life, and he wished it kept :

" Start at once. Call letters Aden and
Grindlay's Bombay."

Susan Mantel saw the whole episode, and
being a woman of discernment as well as having
had a talk with Ainslie a day or two before,
put two and two together, and, according to
her own account, there and then remarked to
her customer " I knows exactly what that
be, Mrs. Pryn, I says knows exactly, I be
bound I does. 'Tis his summons. He be
called for, and may the Lord Almighty, I says,

R

258 AINSLIE GORE

not make it a call for he. I got no faith in
them blacks, Mrs. Pryn, I says not a mossel,
I haven't. And what our por soldiers a-got to
do to kep 'em in their place and lern 'em how
to conduct theirselves, nobody 'ouldn't believe.
The young Squire, ther', was only a-sayin' to
me t'other day, I says, as ther' was great odds
among 'em and as no trustes wasn't to be
placed in 'em.

"But ther' now, Mrs. Pryn, I says, jus' look
at they two a-goin' along together, like th' old
Squire, and hisn's bonny son wi' gun on
shoulder. Ah ! a brave look, has our young
Squire got wi' un, I says a brave look. I
allus said as ther' wasn't never no un wi' such
looks, the country round, and no un wi' a bigger
heart or kinder ways wi' un. Us'n all knew'd
that. An' I bain't ashamed, Mrs. Pryn, I says,
to own to it I loved un as a child, I says, and
I loves un now, though it 'ouldn't be seemly,
like, for me to say so much to many that it
'ouldn't. Ah well, ther' th' old Squire, his
good lady, and the son. Wher' be you a-goin'
to match they, I says ? Nowhere, I says.
Brave an' bold, that's what he be, bless un ! "

It was four o'clock on the 29th of September

THE SUMMONS 259

when my message reached him. Before six
he had left his home and was on his way to
London. Of his doings after that, little is
known beyond what he left recorded in the
small penny account book that he carried with
him, and in which he wrote down certain things
from day to day. The writing is very minute,
and being in pencil was already much rubbed
before it came into my hands ; so much so,
indeed, as to be almost undecipherable in
places.

With the book, when I found it, were a letter
from his father and one from his mother, which
had reached him just as he was leaving London,
and which I will give in what appears to me to
be their proper place; a short note from my
sister, already referred to ; and two letters from
myself which he found waiting for him at Aden
and Bombay as I had promised. These were
tied up together at the time by me, and now lie
before me on this table as I write.

For such further details as were subsequently
gatherable, I was necessarily dependent upon
the one or two who met him on his long
journey, especially in the latter part of it.
All alike spoke of his eagerness to press on,
and his keen anxiety to reach the Regiment
before the real advance began. Untoward

260 AINSLIE GORE

incidents that would have served to check
many, he brushed aside : if he could not get
there one way he would get there by another.
And when he met those who took a grave
view of their responsibilities, and explained
what could and could not be done according
to the regulations, he seems to have listened
respectfully and then to have taken a line of
his own, cost what it might.

At no time does a man declare his own
character quicker than on a campaign. In
Ainslie's case, those who met him here and
particularly at the point where he ultimately
struck the line of march tell how greatly they
were impressed by his depth of nature and
high-souled sense of duty. "He was always
ready to lend a hand," said one. " I don't
think I ever saw anything to beat his self-
forgetfulness and invincible good temper, and
we certainly all admired his splendid strength
and physique."

" I never met a man," wrote another, who
chanced while in command of a mule battery
to be thrown into close company with him
for a large part of a day and a night " I
never met a man who possessed a greater
share of what I will call the compelling power.
There was a natural charm about him that

THE SUMMONS 261

simply won my heart at once, and at the same
time brought me over to his views that I had
at first felt bound seriously to oppose. I can
only tell you that though he was a much
younger man than myself, I ended by feeling
I must give him all he wished. His energy
was infectious, just as there was something
captivating in his whole bearing. The very
truth that was in the man shone out in those
grey eyes of his and rang in his every word,
so that we who met him out here, as I did,
for the first time, asked 'Who's that? 'and
then looked, and looked again."

CHAPTER VIII

EASTWARD

I DO not propose to give the whole contents
of this stained and crumpled diary, however
great its human interest might prove to some.
Many of the entries are of a private nature
references to his home and to mine ; to his
past life, and his hopes for the future, both
in this world and the next. The very last
thing he would have wished would have been
that such thoughts as escaped him here, and
that he jotted down during the enforced idleness
of a long journey, should appear in print for
the rest of the world to discuss and criticise.
He was intensely reserved, and seldom referred
to those things that were linked with his inner
consciousness. What he felt most he at all
times spoke about least. And knowing this,
I have thought it right to give here only such
entries as serve the purpose of the moment.

" We are banging along across France. The
sun has only been up half an hour. Let me

263

EASTWARD 263

see it's Saturday morning : must date this
Oct. \st, 1897. Poor pheasants ! I expect Giles
has killed his brace by this time, to keep the
day. In thirty-six hours from now we should
be in Brindisi. Been rather a fool, I'm afraid.
Must try and make up for it by going as
much quicker than the post as may be possible,
and as nearly as quick as a telegram as I can.
The truth is, I ought to have started a week
or more ago. But I was torn in two, and
dallied on : it's the old story ! A woman is
often altogether too strong for a man ; and
that is just the reason why she may lead him
on the road to heaven if she has it in her
or send him straight along the one lead-
ing to somewhere else. It is a mystery, and
will remain so. I believe that if all the other
greater truths of life were found, one by one,
to be bubbles, and were duly pricked, this
one would remain, to defy the rest of us to
the end. Glad I'm not a woman: it is suf-
ficient responsibility to be a man.

" I was so hurried yesterday, before leaving
London in the evening, that I hardly had
time to do more than glance at two letters from
the dear old people at home. I have just
read them again, this afternoon. They tried
their best to keep touch with me, so long as

264 AINSLIE GORE

I was in the Country. How like them ! They
can't reach me by letter again, for a long while."

The two letters referred to here, I found
upon him later myself. I have just undone
them, after all these years, and tried to smooth
out their creases and their frayed edges. They
are like sacred things to me. The first, given
here, was from his father ; the other from his
mother.

" DEAR SONNIE, I know we have said our
good-byes ; but your mother wants to try and
reach you for a word or two more before you
leave London early to-morrow, so of course
I must back her up, and, after the manner of
us men, put all the blame of this epistle on the
woman ! I expect your mother feels there are
some things she can trust herself to write
rather than speak ; and there are plenty of
things that women, and especially mothers,
can put into words better than we can. But
whether this is right or not, I am not going to
be left behind where you are concerned, even
though I repeat myself.

" I am so very glad, as I said, to think of
your seeing a bit of active service, and know
well how you have always hoped for a chance of

EASTWARD

265

the kind. Most of us are the better for such
experiences, and I go so far as to say that it
would be well for all men to go through some
real hardship, or danger, or privation, at least
once in their lives, and before they are much
more than five - and - twenty. Every man,
woman and child here will look eagerly for
news of you, and also to seeing you back
before very long. You have lost your leave
and the cub-hunting, and they ought to let
you have another turn as soon as this job is
over. Anyway, won't we just about give you
a welcome when that great day comes !

" Many of the old folk here are scratching
their heads over your unceremonious departure,
and saying they would have liked a grip of
your hand before parting. I met old Willum
on my way back from the stables, after telling
Welfare someone would have to take this, and
he said, with pull of forelock that is now pass-
ing out of fashion ' Ther', I does hope, to be
sure, that the young Squire '11 come safe back,
an' not get hurted : can't afford to lose the
likes o' he/ I told the old man that you
would be all right ; but with the usual deep
wisdom of his class, he would have it that
' furrin' parts wus furrin' parts, all said and
done, and none on 'em wasn't old England'

266 AINSLIE GORE

an assertion that I have difficulty in combating.
Mrs. Shaw said much the same when I passed
her at the back door, though she took on most
about 'the dangers of the girt waters,' and
seemed to think, while she has never seen the
sea, that she knew all about them from a
lifetime's acquaintanceship with the Severn
floods.

" I like to hear them talk like that. It goes
to show that when you have once won the
hearts of the best of them, they will no more
change their affections than Molly would, who
lies by my side as I write. Of course it is
only to be got by living with them and grow-
ing up with them and theirs. And as you
have very certainly done this, I trust some
day you may find that affection stand you in
good stead. You know these folk and all
their ways and wants ; and when you come to
live here in your turn as the members of our
family have done, one after the other, for long
your very familiarity with them and with the
land, should teach you the line to take under
all skies and all conditions of weather.

" I am not afraid, anyway, and the one great
joy of my heart is that I have you to follow
me. You'll look after the people and the
place, and keep up the traditions of the family

EASTWARD 267

no one better! If I am not here when you
come back, don't forget what I have often told
you ; and some day, when you have chosen a
wife for yourself and that won't be long, I
hope bring up the next generation on the
same lines. Well, that's enough of that, and
I will only add that all my hopes in such
directions and family and home are everything
to some of us all my hopes are centred in
you.

" Dear me ! when one comes to think of it
how I envy you! It seems a long time back to
the Crimean days and the 8th September '55.
When we tumbled out of the trenches that
day, you know, we had 260 yards to go to
reach the Redan, and the ground as bare of
cover as the back of my hand just whitish
rock and stone and rubble and uphill pretty
near all the way. They were flinging grape
and canister into our teeth and our left flank at
the same time, while the fire from the parapet
took us on the right shoulder. I tell you it
swept the ground like hailstones in one of our
northerly gales on the Severn flats, and how
anyone lived through it I can't say. We
gained the ditch edge, however, and dropped
in, and I don't think there had been much
amiss with our line as we came on ; but we

268 AINSLIE GORE

couldn't hold our ground and, worse luck,
were presently recalled.

" It was just in that open stretch that we
suffered most, and the pity was that it was all
thrown away. We lost two hundred and twenty-
one in killed and wounded in the old Regiment
alone, and out of eighteen officers of ours that
went in, there were only two that came out
alive and untouched your old father having
the luck to be one of them. May it be so
with you : I feel sure it will be. Good-bye. I
won't say any more. Ever your affectionate
father, RUPERT GORE."

" DEAREST SON, Your father says he will
send this over to Actover this evening, so that
it may catch the late post and reach you before
you start in the morning. After you left, we
both went back to the library ; but your father
kept repeating to himself, as he looked out of
the window, just this ' As straight as a line
he'll go as straight as a line I know that
right enough ! ' He was talking to himself and
looking across the park to the high woods.
Of course I knew what he meant ; but it was
too much for me, so I have come away here to
be alone and to write this letter to you.

" Don't think me very silly ; but it is not

EASTWARD 269

easy for a mother to part with a son, especially
if she has only one ! Of course it is natural that
you should wish to be off, and I try to remind
myself that if mothers can't face such things in
the way they should and give their sons to the
fighting Services, as your father always calls
them, there is not much hope for the Country.
So I trust, dear boy, you will not think I was
wanting in spirit in anything I said to you. I
never thought yesterday that we should be
parted so soon. It has all come so suddenly.
I was looking forward to the rest of your leave,
and to several things that I fancied might
happen in the time. All the same, I had
noticed that you and your father seemed to
look for The Times more eagerly than usual,
and think now that you were hiding things
from me, which was very wrong of you both.

" And now it is all over and you are actually
gone, within two hours of that horrid telegram
coming. Well, you are not the first of your
family to leave these doors on much the same
errand, and in that lies part of the pride of the
place and of your name. I like to think that.
Such a fresh call as this, seems to light old fires
anew, and to bring into our lives again those
whose doings are too easily forgotten. I know,
in my case, it will send me round some of the

270 AINSLIE GORE

old portraits with quite fresh interest, though
that should never be.

" And now as to yourself, my dearest son.
I have no fear but that God will bless and
protect you, and bring us all three together
again in His good time, and when this service
of yours is over. That He will help you in all
that may befall you, I shall pray both night
and morning, and many times a day. You
will be always in my thoughts. I know that
you will do your duty fearlessly, and as your
father calls it * go straight ' ! You have always
done so, from the first here, in your home.
We all know that, and I above all, for perhaps
it is often the mother who knows the son best.
You have never given us trouble never once !
I think you will be pleased to feel that, now
you are called away to scenes of which we
women can know nothing. Some day, perhaps,
you will be a great and good soldier, though I
know you laugh at such ideas yourself. You
are quite young yet ; but your time will come,
and then, in my old age if indeed I and your
father are not getting old already I shall be
so proud of your doings, and thank God with
a grateful heart, as I often do now, for such
a son.

" But here is your father, telling me I must

EASTWARD 271

stop, so perforce I must obey. He has just
come in with a letter in his hand, looking
rather guilty when I laughed at him for trying
to make out it was all for my sake that he was
sending this by horse messenger to Actover.
I leave you to picture the expression on his
face, when I guessed he had been writing to
you himself. He has retreated at this moment
to the big chair in the corner, where I have
so often seen you lolling, with many of your
favourite books about you ; and I believe he
has gone there on purpose, and because it was
your particular chair, for books are not the
same living things to him that they have
always been to you. If the truth must be told,
you men are not half as brave as us on some
occasions, and in spite of all your father says,
I can see that he feels your going intensely, and
is just keeping himself up by talking and doing
anything that comes to hand. Once more,
then, dearest boy your old mother's best of
loves good-bye and good luck, and may you
be brought safely back to us before so very long.
Your loving mother, EDITH GORE."

" Oct. 2nd, BRINDISI HARBOUR. The moon
is shining not just on us, but miles and miles
away out at sea, leaving a silver streak on the

272 AINSLIE GORE

very limit of the horizon. By and by the light
will work our way, and this harbour and town,
and accumulated mass of shipping all along
this wharf, will be flooded with it : the silver-
grey clouds will have drifted slowly and
solemnly before the faint airs that are their sole
companions, to create further beautiful effects
here, and for the benefit of all who care to
look.

" How I wish people would sometimes walk
at night. They little know what they miss.
Give them pavements and gas lamps, and they
will trudge, shop-gazing, till they drop. Sug-
gest their leaving their houses after dark in the
country to come over the hills and look down
at the moonlit valley and the mists that hang
at the bends of the river ; that float here and
float there and are gone again, like the life of
a man to enter the woods and listen to its
many sounds, in storm or calm ; to tell the
trees in winter by the forms of their dark limbs
against the starlit heavens ere the moon is
up, or by their voices in the winds to walk
through the glades in summer's shortest nights,
when the warmth rises from the ground where
the sun has beat all day, and Nature seems to
be panting in the stillness to watch the golden
glow, where the sun went down, travelling now

EASTWARD 273

from the West to the North, and from the
North onward to the East again, to be turned
once more to silver at the dawn of another
day ; suggest their leaving their houses and
seeing some of these, and a myriad other
things that are only to be seen and heard and
felt in the night hours, is to be thought at least
strange ! More's the pity.

" October $rd. Monday morning. We left
Brindisi about midnight, and are now steaming
straight for Port Said. I have just been look-
ing through the itinerary of my journey, as
made out in London on Friday. I could not
have done it at all, had it not been for the
extraordinary kindness of the P. & O. Com-
pany and Cook's. They seemed to take quite
a personal interest in the matter. That's the
best of going to great firms. You get the
best of everything. Of course you pay for
it ; but the best pays, whether you are going
a long journey, and hope, as I do, to reach
the end without losing a minute, or merely
want to take a long walk in the best shoe-
leather.

" Well, this is how they tabled it out for me
to begin at the beginning :

" Leave London, Friday evening, September
30th.

274 AINSLIE GORE

" Reach Brindisi, Sunday evening, and leave
about rfiidnight.

11 Port Said, morning of 6th October.

<( Suez, on the 7th.

" Aden, early morning of the nth.

" Bombay, on the 16th. 1

All depends upon the hour we reach Bombay.
That's the crucial point, because, otherwise, I
may miss the Punjab Mail, leaving at 5.15 P.M.
If I do so, there will be the clear loss of a day,
and I shall be kicking my heels in the streets
of Bombay. From there to Peshawar takes
two days and a few hours, when of course the
fun will begin. But no doubt letters at Aden,
or somewhere, will tell me what then. If I
am lucky I ought to reach the Regiment soon
after the 2Oth, and my leave is not up till
November 2nd.

" October ^tk. We are rather a miscellaneous
crowd on board : hardly any soldiers, the
majority being bound for other places than
India, and a few going no farther than Egypt.
We have already started cricket and other
games, and great fun they are. There is also

1 It must be remembered that these dates refer to seventeen
years ago, the P. & O. Company informing the writer that,
since 1897, the acceleration in contract service outwards, be-
tween Brindisi and Bombay, now amounts to seventy-four
hours.

EASTWARD 275

a small piano in the saloon, and I go and
strum on it sometimes in the afternoon. The
worst is, people will come and bother me to
play jigs I never heard of, and just when one
wants to be alone. I try to accommodate them
as best I can.

" October 6th. Port Said. Early morning.
What a place ! Looks as if the dregs of the
whole world had been swept in here and left
to rot in the heat.

" We were getting on all right in the Canal
till this afternoon, when we were pulled up.
A large steamer aground ahead somewhere ;
and here we have been for nearly two hours,
with high sandy banks on either side of us.
It is rather maddening, for I keep counting
up the days and the hours and the minutes
and it may well be a matter of minutes to me.

" October *]th. We are just passing Suez,
late to-night, and have already lost some time.
We are getting up a concert for to-morrow
evening, and are going to have the piano on
deck. I wonder what a concert will be like in
the heat of the Red Sea. I am singing 'Tom
Bowling,' for the benefit of the crew and I
hope, for the passengers as well. Surely Tom
Bowling himself is one of the immortals : he'll
never die, though his soul has gone aloft many

276 AINSLIE GORE

years now. He certainly played his part, and
left an indelible mark behind him. Wish I
could !

" October loth. The heat has been great,
and the wind being with us has made it ten
times worse. A dreadful thing happened
yesterday. One of the quartermasters had
gone up to the main cross-trees, and fell from
there into the sea. A boat was lowered at
once, and the ship was stopped. I shall never
forget seeing his cap afterwards, floating on
the water where he went down. - Some say
he must have struck his head against one of
the open ports, and so sunk at once. Anyway,
after rowing about for nearly an hour, the cap
was the only trace brought back by the boat.
He leaves a wife and four children, and we
are getting up a subscription for them. We
always fly to money. Very naturally. In
many cases it is our only way of showing
sympathy. We have put off our second con-
cert. To-morrow we shall be at Aden. We
ought to reach there very early in the morning ;
but we shan't, probably, till after mid-day.

" October i \th. Aden. Here we are, at last,
and about half a day late. Can't be helped.
One good thing is that I have got the letter
I wanted, and have read it again and again.

EASTWARD 277

I feel quite in heart, though I have evidently
missed a lot of the preliminaries. I think I
shall be in time to reach them before the
fighting begins : will try my level best. Wish
to goodness the ship would go on. Every
minute may make a difference."

The letter referred to is the first of those I
wrote in the hope of reaching him on his
journey out. I found it with the others at
the time, and give it here :

" It was no use my writing to Port Said :
the letter would only, I feel sure, have missed
you there, so I shall try my second string, and
hope this may reach you at Aden. Don't
forget that another letter will be waiting for
you at Bombay, to tell you the latest. You
must call for it at Messrs. Grindlay, Groom's
offices in Hornby Road.

" Here we are at Peshawar, right enough.
The concentration had been going on for some
time before our arrival, and also at Jamrud, so
that the country, for miles round, seems alive
with troops and transport and all the impedi-
menta of a modern army. You would be
hugely interested in it, and it would take your
fancy. It is all on such a big scale, and the

278 AINSLIE GORE

gradual growth of this great force, slowly
perfecting its arrangements that it may reach
death grips with pretty well certainty of
victory, would fire your mind with all sorts
of romantic ideas.

" There is no doubt that we are coming into
touch with big things, and to miss these would
break your heart. Bad enough your missing
all we are at now so much of which reminds
me of our talk of tented fields when we were
boys and devoured all the books we could get
on the Punjab wars, the Mutiny and the rest.
I got your wire all right, and was thankful to
hear that you had started directly mine reached
you. Every hour is bringing you nearer to
your goal now.

"Of course I am brim full of knowledge.
Perhaps you would like a little of it. The first
thing that strikes one, not having seen such
shows as this before, is, as I say, the stupen-
dous scale on which everything is being done.
It makes all one's previous experiences in peace
time seem quite insignificant. This is the real
thing. There is no doubt of that.

" First of all, our fighting force is to be 34,000
men, when all have come in, with not far short
of the same number of non-combatants, and
about 50,000 transport animals. That's a

EASTWARD 279

jolly lot of mouths to fill every day and keep
supplied with everything, from ammunition to
firewood, food, and fodder. To start with, we
have to get the whole crowd through the
Kohat Pass, as our three columns are to
concentrate at Kohat, at the first go off.

" There is nothing to be got in the country
we have before us. It is God forsaken,
they tell us, and the most difficult country in
the world. Only two Europeans have ever
visited it, and these never came back. There
are no roads, only goat tracks at best, with
miles of mountain torrents, where the water
rushes over rocks and boulders and is icy. In
the daytime it is often blazing hot, and at
night beastly cold. The gorges are only wide
enough for two animals to move abreast, and
occasionally not that. They are also very
steep, with precipitous descents. And, mind
you, a plucky enemy holding every defile and
occupying every ridge, and knowing every inch
of the country perfectly.

" These Afridis and Orakzai carry the latest
breechloading rifles ; which, moreover, we
have taught many of them how to use. They
are grand marksmen and have plenty of
ammunition, for having lately got in their
autumn harvest, money has been plentiful

280 AINSLIE GORE

and they have been free to indulge their
fancy in such directions to the full.

" No doubt you saw, before you left, that
the Malakan had been attacked ; that these
Johnnies had actually invested Chakdara on
the Swat River ; and that all the tribes on this
side of the Panjkora were up. Well, we are
going to teach them manners, though some
say it is not going to be exactly a walk over.
Afridis are fighters by instinct, being simply
born to the job and loving it ; and to add to
their natural love of fight, and by way of in-
flaming them, a notice has been sent round by
their mullahs to say that this expedition of ours
is a war of extermination against them, and
that we mean wiping them out for good.
Meanwhile, as they can, it is said, put not
less than 40,000 fighting men against us of
the quality described, I should not think
* wiping out ' would be exactly easy, even
if it were our way of doing things.

" There are three columns, and ours is the
main column, under the chief. It is to be
made up of 8 Regiments of British Infantry,
12 of Native Infantry, 6 Mountain Batteries,
i Regiment of Native Cavalry, and 5 companies
of Sappers. We are to advance over the
Samana into the heart of the Afridi country

EASTWARD 281

to Tirah, a country where no British Force
has ever been and we are told we are to
sweep away all opposition as we go.

" We may almost certainly be first opposed
at the Sampagha and other passes leading into
the Rajgul and Maidan valleys. The former
is nearly due north of our line of forts on the
Samana. The approach is fairly easy, they
say, and the position can be turned on either
flank. Once we are over that, we shall have
below us the summer quarters of the Afridis
the southern valleys of Tirah, and almost
immediately afterwards, we should be in the
very heart of the tribal country.

11 Well ; that's what we have before us. Our
force is said to be the very flower of the army
in India. Come along quick and make up the
nosegay, and select the kind of bud you are
going to be ! We have grand times before us
simply grand ! Mind you don't lose an instant
anywhere. When you have done with the
ship and the trains, come at a gallop all the
rest of the way, till you pick us up ; and when
any horse or pony you have begged, borrowed,
or stolen, is blown and can't carry you another
yard, come on at a double 'steady double,'
mind you, and ' no running,' as our first drill-
sergeant use to say. He was much too fat to

282 AINSLIE GORE

do either himself. I know your staying powers
well enough, and can see you, now, tumbling
into Chalvey at the School Jump in the Steeple-
chase, but winning it all the same ! "

"October \2th. About four days more and
we shall be in Bombay, and, if I have luck, in
five days after that I ought to reach them.
That should just about do it. Some of the
folk on board have begun to chaff me about
my anxiety to get on, and last night one of
the company in the smoking-room remarked
to the rest ' I have never seen a fellow in
such a hurry to be killed, in all my life ! ' All
the others laughed, so of course I laughed
too. At the same time, the idea of being
killed is quite a new one to me. It never
entered my head, and I certainly don't want
to be.

"When we all laughed, another fellow added
' The truth is, he is tired of life ! ' That's
a funny idea, too. Life! why, life is the
finest thing in the universe. Surely, though,
one isn't meant to spoil it all by taking stock
of risks and dwelling on possible wounds ?
That is just to stifle effort at the start. And
as to being tired of life, I always think of
that remark of Goethe's ' A man will be tired

EASTWARD 283

of anything sooner than of life, and no one
reaches the goal towards which he set out ;
for however long a man may be prosperous
in his career, still, at last, and often when in
sight of the hoped-for object, he falls into
a grave which God knows who dug for him,
and is reckoned as nothing.'

" I think that is about right, so far as I
can remember it and put it into English. The
doctrine is rather depressing. If, however, we
are in reality seldom able to attain our desires
in their entirety and all the rest that Goethe
says here is true that is no reason why we
should not have an aim. To have an aim
and to be prepared to risk all in its attainment,
leads to happiness. I don't know if I am
wrong, but I always think it best to go forward,
without allowing the final, inevitable shadow
to intrude upon the way. Life is given to
be spent spend it !

" October \^th. We are going to have our
last entertainment to-night. Two men are doing
that dualogue that we have often had at home
two old Gloucestershire women in poke bonnets,
telling their gossip to one another. Only one
of the men comes from the County, and I don't
quite see how the other is going to manage
the dialect. You must start young to acquire

284 AINSLIE GORE

that and the inimitable pronunciation ; there is
no getting it later.

" I hoped to have stuck to the piano, so far
as I was personally concerned, and quite enough
too ; but several voted there should be reciting,
so I have been persuaded to give them some-
thing in that line. I am sure I don't want to,
and think they will be sorry they asked me,
for I have found a copy of Browning in the
ship's library, and have polished up my recol-
lection of a poem of his that I once had to
declaim in School Speeches, on the 4th June
at Eton. It is ' Abt Vogler (after he has been
extemporising upon the musical instrument of
his invention),' and I have still a vivid recol-
lection of how my dear old Tutor tried to teach
me not to miss the points, and especially in those
two wonderful stanzas, the ninth and tenth :

Therefore to whom turn but to thee, the ineffable Name ?

Builder and maker, thou, of houses not made with hands !

What, have fear of change from thee who art ever the same ?

Doubt that thy power can fill the heart that thy power

expands ?
There shall never be one lost good ! What was shall live

as before ;

The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound ;
What was good shall be good, with, for evil, so much good

more;

On the earth the broken arcs ; in the heaven, a perfect
round.

EASTWARD 285

All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good shall

exist ;
Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, nor

power
Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the

melodist

When eternity affirms the conception of an hour.
The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too

hard,

The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky,
Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard ;
Enough that he heard it once : we shall hear it by-and-by.

" I must finish this off for the present. To-
morrow will be a regular rush. We are certain
to be a good bit behind time, and I fear it
will be afternoon before we are in. I don't
mind how late it is, so long as there is enough
margin left for me to catch that Punjab Mail
at 5.15.

" I was told last night by an old Colonel
who is on his way to Madras, that the thing
above all others for me to do is to avoid the
Embarking Officer. If I go near anyone to
do with the local Head Quarters' Staff in
Bombay, he says, I shall almost certainly be
caught and made use of to take detachments
of troops up country, and thereby be let in
for a loss of many days. As I am still on
leave, there is no reason why I should put my
neck into such a noose, so I shall take his

286 AINSLIE GORE

advice. The thing to do is to get to the
Regiment : I shall be safe then.

" Our entertainment went well this evening,
and the funny thing to me was that even the
crew seemed to appreciate ' Abt Vogler.' I
should have thought it would have been over
their heads, and the heads, too, of many others
present. The applause, however, was tre-
mendous, and when it ended we all sang ( God
save the Queen.' So there's an end of all
that. It has been a cheery, jolly time, and I
suppose we shall all be scattered to-morrow.

" To-morrow! thereis alwaysthe to-morrow,
thank Heaven ! We talk glibly of the finality
and the end of things, but surely that is quite
false. The course is continuous ; the work to
be done here, and there, without end. No one
knows when his appointed task shall be judged
as finished here, and when he shall be set one
that is new elsewhere. Young or old, the
uncertainty is the same for all. Better fix the
eyes on the. common goal, without over much
questioning. And if the hopes we cling to so
wistfully as the days draw on, leave us now
and then feeling very tired, we may rest assured
that the sense of weariness will vanish when
the sun of time goes to its setting and that
which is of eternity shall rise.

EASTWARD 287

"It is getting ever so late and I must stop.
The ship is quite silent, except for the eternal
throb of the screw and, at intervals, the tread
of one of the watch on deck. How ' Abt
Vogler ' runs in one's head !

And I blunt it into a ninth, and I stand on alien ground,
Surveying awhile the heights I rolled from into the deep ;

Which, hark, I have heard and done, for my resting place

is found,
The C major of this life : so now I will try to sleep."

CHAPTER IX
THE END OF THE JOURNEY

" October i6tk. Did any man ever have such
a narrow shave ! I just managed it, and that
was all. The low-lying land was not sighted
till tiffin time. That was bad enough. But
we simply crawled when we got round Colaba
Point, and it was past 4 o'clock when we
dropped anchor. I felt inclined to jump into
the water and swim ashore. It was a job to
get a boat. Managed it at last. Landed at
the Apollo Bunda, kit and all, having previously
separated what I wanted with me from what
must be sent after me to Peshawar. The rest
comes out from England by next mail.

" When at last I got ashore, I took a tickha-
gharri, and by bad luck dropped in for the
stupidest driver on earth. He actually drove
me into Apollo Street, which he must have
known was up for repairs ; as indeed we found,
to my great annoyance. So we had to go
back, and got into a street called Rampart Row,

and from that into Churchgate Street. A

288

THE END OF THE JOURNEY 289

clock struck five as I reached Grindlay's offices
in Hornby Road, and it was several minutes
before I could get anyone to attend to me.
Arranged everything there ; got the letter I
expected ; jumped into the gharri again ; made
the stupidest driver on earth leather his pony ;
and ran for this train just reaching it in time,
and my kit being flung in after me when it
was already on the move. It is all right now;
and I am in India, and on the GIF. But
just fancy if I had missed it ! Quite possibly
it might have altered my whole career,

" From this letter, it seems I may just reach
them in time, and no more. I have read it
over and over again, and tried to plot it out to
the last minute. We are due at Agra at 5.45
to-morrow evening ; Delhi at 9 P.M. ; Umballa
at 2.43 A.M. that's the day after to-morrow ;
Amritzar at 7.57 the same morning ; Lahore
at 9 A.M. ; Rawalpindi at 3.50 P.M., and Peshawar
at 8.13 that same evening. One good thing ;
we seem to be going faster than in the old
1 Indus' : there are things to measure pace by
now, and there are none at sea. It is all
splendid."

The letter that reached him in Bombay was
my second, the last of the five that had been

T

2 9 o AINSLIE GORE

tied up separately with the penny account book
years ago. It lies before me once again at
this moment, and runs thus :

" I do hope you got my letter at Aden, for it
will have told you things that could hardly
have reached you before you left England. I
fancy now that you should be in Bombay in
less than a week, when you will of course get
this.

" We have been having a jolly spell of hard
work, and have covered some ground, too,
between whiles, for here we are in Shinwari,
our advanced base. But I must go back a bit.
After leaving Peshawar, our column came
right through from Bara and Jamrud, and
reached the foot of the Kohat Pass on the 9th
October. The next day we crossed and got
all our lot through to Kohat, doing the
eighteen miles without a hitch. The other two
columns followed us on the nth and i2th, and
we all joined up and were ready for our next
step.

"The Transport is a sight, and yet they
say we haven't enough ! There are animals of
all sorts ponies, mules, donkeys, camels
together with every kind of vehicle, from
bullock waggons to ordinary go-downs. The

THE END OF THE JOURNEY 291

whole of this show is in charge of some
17,000 drivers of kinds. And all this that our
army may live, and what's more, fight ; with a
place for the damaged in the way of a liberal
supply of dhoolies and full hospital equipment.
But you are bound to see all this for yourself.
The constant stream must continue, to and fro
on our line of communications, whatever we
may be doing ourselves. You will find it pretty
hot, and at night fairly cold don't forget this.
" As soon as our huge mobilisation was
complete at Kohat, we left there and followed
the river to Ustazai, half way to Hangu a
distance of about a dozen miles, you will find it.
There is a good camp there, standing on a
conical hill, looking down a fertile valley.
You can't mistake it. We crossed the Kohat
River near Ratsan, the travelling not being bad
from there all the way to Hangu, and past
Darban and on to Kai. We were going
North, after leaving Kohat bare, rocky-look-
ing country for the most part, the Samana
ridge stretching out before us, with Fort
Lockhart, away to the right, when we reached
Kai. From this last, you will only have about
twelve miles left to get to this place, and I
only hope to heaven that you will come in
before we go forward. I cannot say when the

292 AINSLIE GORE

real advance will be, exactly, these points
being naturally kept dark ; but it can't be
many days now, and we shan't have far to go
before the fun begins.

" At present we are still busy concentrating
here, and, what is more, gradually accumulat-
ing twenty days' stores for 20,000 men. Our
camp stands on two conical hills, and we are
having enough to do in putting it into a state
of defence : it doesn't do, apparently, to hold
these Afridi chaps too cheap. Apart from
convoy duty, what we are doing now there-
fore, and more particularly, is building zaribas
round the extremities, with wire entangle-
ments in the valley between. In some ways,
we have had rather a rough time ; but it has
been awfully jolly and I have enjoyed every
step of the eighty or ninety miles, or whatever
it is we have come on our ten toes, since
leaving Peshawar. The only thing that I
have constantly regretted is that you were not
along, and all the fellows say the same. But
I must tell you what I can about our friends,
or rather enemies, in front, and also something
of the kind of job we can see plainly enough
lies ahead of us. You will know, then, all
that we do, and will be able to take your own
line.

THE END OF THE JOURNEY 293

" We have already come into touch. On
the nth, a working party of Pioneers and
1000 Punjabis went over the Changru Kotal
and were fired on. Luckily we had some
other troops handy and a mountain battery,
and the enemy were shelled with severe loss,
and with no casualties on our side. The
village of Dargai was seen to be crowded,
and we know that large forces are concen-
trated in the Khanki valley beyond. The
enemy have apparently posted themselves in
front of the Shinwari position.

"The ascent from Shinwari, we are told,
looks easy from the plain, but in reality is a
steep, rugged, almost impassable hillside, with
no road, only sheep or goat tracks and as rough
as you like. Dargai, which is about six miles
from this, and which we rather gather is to
be our first objective, and from which we have
to bundle these fellows out somehow or other,
is a good deal higher than the Changru Kotal.
On one side there is a sheer precipice, and
there is only one point of access not a very
comfortable look-out, seeing that this approach
is fully commanded from the ridge above,
where the enemy have built themselves in
behind pretty solid sangars.

" Well, that is all I have to say. I have

294 AINSLIE GORE

been writing this at odd moments to-day and
a bit hurriedly ; but I am keen you should
know exactly where we are and certain land-
marks that may help you. You will want the
inside of three days at least to reach us from
Peshawar. Your only chance is to come on
independently ; to be a little mutinous ; and
to pick up a pony for yourself, by hook or
crook. I can only say again do your level
best. We have a grand chance before us, and
I would not have you absent for all the wealth
of India!"

"October ijth. I have had the most amaz-
ing piece of luck. That sentence ' You will
want the inside of three days at least to reach
us from Peshawar' has been running in my
head all day. It means that, via Peshawar, I
could not expect to get to this place, Shinwari,
till the 2ist, at the earliest, and very possibly
not till some days later, seeing that getting
through the Kohat Pass, crowded as it is,
must be no joke. However, if there are such
things as good angels, I feel sure mine must
be attending me pretty closely, for as luck
would have it, a spare, dried-up looking, lean
man, with quick, dark eyes and a keen face,
entered my carriage at Agra, and we have

THE END OF THE JOURNEY 295

been talking ever since. He is one of the
Indian Civils, and was once at Kohat. He
asked me where I was going up country, and
I told him my story as well as I could. He
did not thaw at once, though the wonder is
that anyone can be cold at all in this heat ;
but he became quite genial after a bit, and has
given me no end of help.

" The outcome of it is that I am not going
to Peshawar now. Think of that ! He says
that if I once land in there, the chance is I
shall take a week to get on, if I ever do. I
must leave the train at Rawalpindi to-morrow
evening, and get another to take me to a place
called Khushalgarh. By this means I shall
save enormously, and avoid the main stream
on the lines of communication. Khushalgarh,
he says, is only thirty-two miles from Kohat.
I feel that what with the heat and this unex-
pected stroke of luck, I shall hardly be able
to sleep to-night. This new-found friend says
he will tell me more to-morrow. He is going
as far as Lahore, and there will be plenty of
time in the morning to talk the matter out.

"October i8M. I think I have got it all.
My new-found friend had some maps with
him, and by the help of these and his own
intimate knowledge of the country, was actually

296 AINSLIE GORE

able to give me the distances from Kohat to
Shinwari. The whole is 46 miles, he says,
by Usterzai 12 miles ; Hangu 13 miles ; Kai
15 miles; and from there, 6 miles will land
me at Shinwari. He reckons it would take
about five hours by tonga to get from Khushal-
garh to Kohat, and says that there would
be no difficulty about getting on alone from
this last, as there are pretty certain to be
depots every march ; that is, about every fifteen
miles.

" We have just parted at Lahore, both
hoping that we shall meet again some day.
I could not thank him enough for all his help.
It just makes all the difference to me, and I
feel fairly sure now that I shall be able to
get through before they leave Shinwari : I'll
have a jolly good try, anyway. Delhi, Lahore,
Umballa! Household words with us, and
yet, in general atmosphere and appearance, so
utterly unlike what one pictured them. The
truth is, there is no conjuring up a true picture
of such a land as this. You must have visited
the East to realise it ; and to smell the smell
of the East once is to know it ever afterwards
blindfold.

"We shall be at Rawalpindi in about an
hour, so I must get my few things together a

THE END OF THE JOURNEY 297

bit. I wish I knew my way about better or
rather, knew my way at all ; also that I had
some Hindustani at command. The only two
words I know, as it happens, are jeldie jao
the equivalent, I believe, for ' push on,' or
' shove along ' ; don't matter which, so long
as they'll do it !

" October \<$th. Usterzai. Just conceive the
news that reached me on getting to Khushal-
garh late yesterday evening! I had the bad
luck to run against one of those strange indi-
viduals very rarely met with in our Service
who seems to take a delight in the morbid, and
loves to deal in the depressing. If it is any
satisfaction to him, he certainly made me feel
quite sick.

"It seems that yesterday, the force, or part
of it, at Shinwari, left at 4 A.M., and that by
9.30 the batteries had already come into action
against the Dargai ridge. At noon, a rush
was made and the crest was carried. By this
time it was 2 o'clock in the afternoon. Shinwari
was eight miles away, over roads only recently
made, and the little water to be had was three
miles distant, apparently. So the main part
of the force retired, and the rest followed,
between 4 and 5, when the sun was sinking.
What happened after that he did not know,

298 AINSLIE GORE

no further news having come through. He
was, however, of opinion that it was the worst
thing that had occurred in India for genera-
tions, and that to such fellows as these Afridis,
a retirement on our part meant that they had
beaten us. He added a lot more in the same
strain, finishing up with ( You seem to be
in a confounded hurry ; but you are too late
altogether too late ! ' If I had not been a
newcomer, and he much my senior, I should
have told him what I thought of him.

" There was no getting on that night, as the
tonga only runs during the daytime. It was
already past midnight, and so I ate some of
the cold chops and bread I had packed my
haversack with at Rawalpindi Station, took a
drink of water, and then rolled myself in my
blanket under the lee of a wall and slept till
dawn.

"The tonga left just before light, and I was
the only one travelling by it. The tonga
wallah was a good fellow and shoved along
well ; cracked his short whip with a long lash,
made the most extraordinary sounds at the
ponies, and occasionally blew a bugle-shaped
horn. I should have blown it too ; but hardly
felt in the humour, and kept asking myself
what the real truth was about this retirement,

THE END OF THE JOURNEY 299

and whether there was any truth in it at all.
It seemed, as I thought it over, that I must
have certainly missed something, and that was
depressing. But if so, there was all the more
reason for redoubling my efforts. We got an
extra pony hitched to the outside of the shafts
at one dak, and at another place a third was
put on in front to help up the hills, for our
load was heavy ; both the other seats being
crammed with things, and odds and ends hung
on anywhere, and over the wheels as well.

"We had reached Kohat before noon a
rum-looking place, with a wall round part of
it, about twelve feet high, and with an amphi-
theatre of hills behind. Much of the country
seems just a savage waste, with rocks and
stones everywhere, and brushwood formed of
all manner of thorns, mimosa, and also wild
olive. A few patches of cultivation in the
lower lands, and here and there a grassy glade,
with mulberry trees, and now and then a large
walnut with a stone seat under it, put there by
the natives. Great mountains covered with
snow in the distance, with two great peaks
higher than the rest.

" Though nearly the whole force had left
Kohat, there was a busy scene there. The
first thing I tried to do was to get a pony

300 AINSLIE GORE

somehow. Once again my luck stood me in
good stead, or that good angel of mine, for I
chanced upon a mule battery that was going
forward this very afternoon, and got the Major
commanding it to let me come too. So here
I am with them, for the moment, and have
reached this place, Usterzai, twelve miles on
my way.

" The bad news was confirmed at Kohat ;
but I can't make out if the Regiment was en-
gaged. Nobody knew. It is said that the
retirement was a ticklish affair ; the enemy
coming on again, and the desultory fighting
continuing throughout the greater part of the
night of the eighteenth. Retire ! What could
the Regiment have thought? It is horrible,
though there was obviously no help for it.

" I am writing this with difficulty. The sun
has set ; but the moon is now rising. The
effect has been splendid ; the summit of the
peaks on one side being lit up, and the cliffs
on the other left in steel-blue shadow. I can't
make out the stars at all ; but on such occasions
as this, a man has to be 'his own star,' I suppose.
It is a stern, rugged country, and gets worse
and worse after leaving Kohat ; the road follow-
ing the left bank of the Kohat River all the way
we have come, at present, and ascending all

THE END OF THE JOURNEY 301

the way, too. Shinwari, they say, is over 2000
feet above Kohat, and Dargai 2000 feet above
that.

" It is terrible loss of time sitting here in
this way, but it can't be helped. I am writing
by moonlight now, and the men are lighting
fires. There are the sounds of the camp on
all sides fellows laughing and talking, horses
clearing their nostrils, the champing of bits, and
the continual rumble of wheels, someone > chop-
ping firewood, and another working at a field
forge. The smoke of the fires drifts off, and
as the scent comes my way, it reminds me of
Denton and the fires the men used to make in
the clearings at home.

" I have just been having a talk with the
Major, and have told him what I want to do.
He is an Eton fellow, and has found out what
little there is to know about me, and I have
found out all about him. At first, he laughed
at my idea that I should push on to-night.
But he is going to back me all the same, for
the sake of the bond between us.

" One thing he tells me, and this is that
these Afridi beggars are hard to get level
with, and never lose a chance. They move
infernally quickly, and it is difficult to see them
on the rough hillsides. Flanking parties may

302 AINSLIE GORE

think they clear the whole ground ; but directly
they are gone, these born fighters come back
again, having hidden themselves in holes or
behind boulders. He says they always ' snipe '
at a single fellow, though they rarely give them-
selves away by doing so at a big party. On
this line of communications, he thinks I shall
be all right; but once off it, I shall have to
look out. He was on the Frontier, in the show
of two years ago, so knows all about it.

" I am going ahead shortly, and start in an
hour. The Major has gone off now to get me
a good feed, and also to feed an extra pony of
his own, that I am to leave at the Field Park
at Shinwari, when I get there. With decent
riding, he says, he is certain the animal will do
the job, if anything on four legs can. Of course
all this is hugely exciting. I revel in it just
what I have longed for for years !

"It seems that the road continues on this
side of the river for another two miles, and
then crosses and runs along the South of the
Samana range of hills all the rest of the way.
I must do it. The distance is only about thirty-
four miles, and I mean to try my best. Only
one thing more if anything happens to me, I
trust the Regiment will believe I have tried to
be in my place : that's all ! "

THE END OF THE JOURNEY 303

Such is the last entry in this tattered book
of many memories.

"Yes, Sir," replied the Sergeant, drawing
himself up and saluting " Yes, Sir ; we seen
him comin' along the road yonder, leading a
pony, and just as it was turning light. The
Regiment hadn't been gone well, not half an
hour, it hadn't. Ther' was smoke still showing
from the fires, and some un I forgets who
'twas asks th' officer if he'd have a cup of
coffee, as ther' was a drop or two of it lef .
But he turns round and says, with a bit of a
laugh * I won't go for to trouble about that,'
he says ' got no time ; thank you ! Which
way to the Field Park ? ' Then he asks ' An'
which be my best road to overtake 'em ? ' So
I showed un, an' says ' Yonder, Sir, see
that's the line of 'em, a-windin' away round
yon bluff.'

" He jus' seemed to smile, then ; jumps on
his pony, and touches un with his heels and
was off. ' Thank you, Sergeant/ he calls ' I
shall catch 'em yet ! ' An' that's the very last
as I seen of un, for he had the look o' one as
wanted to get on, an' no time to talk. No, he
didn't look partic'l?r tired, he didn't. His

304 AINSLIE GORE

eyes wer' as bright as a child's, and he wore
a merry smile on the face of un, he did. Well,
one of mi' own men said as much, arterwards,
an' as he looked like one likely to be doin'
execution, if so be he come to close quarters
and got in ! "

That was all I was able to gather in that
direction. It was quite . sufficient. He had
done his last ride, evidently saving his pony
as much as he could, and timing his journey
to within twenty minutes. I wish now he had
missed us by an hour, and also wish many
another thing. I have often reckoned up
those minutes, and ended the same way a
journey of many thousand miles, at so many
miles an hour, and brought down, in the end,
to yards and minutes. Missing us by an hour
would certainly have made a difference ; but
so would half an hour, or a quarter, or any
fraction of the minutes themselves. A little
less eagerness on his part, another hour's delay
on the voyage, missing the mail at Bombay or
that friend in the train, the refusal of the loan
of that pony for the night ride anything,
everything would have made a difference.
No ; it was just that twenty minutes, with the
added time it took him to deliver the pony
where he had promised to it was just that

THE END OF THE JOURNEY 305

that did it, and brought him to the fatal spot
to the fraction of a second, to meet a random
shot. The line of thought has been followed,
a thousand times, till it has come to be a tangled
skein refusing all unravelling. Best leave it.

A long trail of dead and wounded were
being brought down the steep descent from
the summit of the kotal, after the second fight
at Dargai, on the 2Oth October, 1897. Some
of the wounded were being carried in one way,
some in another, down the zig-zag track and
between the rocks and boulders on men's
backs, in men's arms, on their crossed hands :
so, too, the dead, slung as best might be,
silently and with reverence.

The long trail wound its way down, under
great cliffs, down hazardous slopes, through
scrub that tore clothes and caught at every-
thing. Below us lay the valleys and ravines
of a savage, desolate mountain region ; behind
us, the scene, still warm, of one of the finest
fights the Frontier had ever known ; and with
us, this tale of dead and wounded that had
gone to make the victory that scarcely more
than an hour before had been a living, eager
throng, going forward silently, with light in

u

3o6 AINSLIE GORE

the eyes and a catch in the breath, till of a
sudden, in one quarter, the pipes rolled out
the slogan, and in another men broke into a
cheer.

It chanced that I was detailed to go back
with others, as escort to one portion of the
convoy of ambulance waggons, carts, and
dhoolies, for the camp at Shinwari. We had
gone some way, and I had been walking on
the off-side of a waggon in which, with others,
were two wounded brother officers, when one
of the escort came round, saying " There's
one of ours a-hailin' of us down the nullah''
The convoy was halted for the moment, owing
to a block in front, and I dropped down to see
what was wrong, for two were on the ground
there, one of whom was kneeling on one knee
and waving his hand.

"Ay," said this one, when I reached him;
and for a moment I paid no attention to his
words : they seemed to come from a long way
off, and to belong to another world. " Ay,"
he said, again " the vara fust shot as was
fired. Then ther' was a sing out ' Sthretcher
this way ! ' and I dropped back ; and ther' er
lay.

" Ther' was no call for the like when I got
to un, as I could see sthretcher or naught no

THE END OF THE JOURNEY 307

call whativer! He'd put in his time. Ah,
reached us ay ! come up at a run, he did ;
and soon arter it showed full light. Ther' was
scarce a single wan amongst us noticed un
scarce a single wan any more than us took
count o' that shot, or knew'd wher' it come
fra' ! "

" They may try mi, now, for not bein' in mi
place they may try me bi Rigimental, or
Disthrict, or Gineral they may try me by any
bally court they like ! Do you think I haven't
took full punishment a'ready, through missin'
o' the finest fight as iver wus ? Do you judge
as that's not enough for any man, for that
matter?" and the words seemed to hiss
through his teeth, as if he were torn by con-
flicting emotions.

" Ah ! " he went on " the Regiment's had
a belly full of fightin' to-day, an' over yonder
goes the truth o' that, as I can see. But who
was a-goin' to leave un lying here, stark
though he wer' not me ! not for all the best
o' the fightin' as could come, and though it
wer' promised to last from dark till dark come
back again.

" Do yer think as I would leave he to be
mauled by them hell-thieves that hides and
hides and we can never finds, and is as nimble

3o8 AINSLIE GORE

with their knives as they little Goorkha chaps
yonder with their kookries ? No fear ! They
shouldn't niver touch he. He wer' the bes'
friend as iver any on us had the bes' friend ;
and if it warn't for he, I'd be doin' time now
ay, doin' time now."

I recall looking at the man's face at that
point. I had been dazed till then. His words
came hot, and quicker and quicker, as though
the temper rose in him. He had square jaws,
a bull-neck, and powerful shoulders, and much
blood had dried on one cheek. Then I knew.
It was Joe Clancy, and he wore a full
Corporal's stripes upon his arm. He only said
a few words after that. We had other work in
hand.

" They sniped the two of us, as 'twas," he
continued later, in answer to a question " Ay,
sniped the two of us, till they got me in the
shoulder an' the ribs. That's naught ! So I
draw'd un down here behind these stones for
a bit o' shelter draw'd un down and waited,
and hoped to Gawd as they'd come on ! But no
fear ; they hadn't got the spirit they hadn't
got the spirit though we was only wan ! "

We buried our dead from Dargai fight in the

THE END OF THE JOURNEY 309

lonely, desolate valley at Shinwari ; and there,
in unmarked graves, they rest in God.

Just beneath the East window of Uenton
Church, on a square plot of soft turf, kept
closely mown and surrounded by a hedge of
yew not more than eighteen inches high, are
two recumbent stones. The one records that
RUPERT GORE departed this life on the
28th day of February, 1899, in the seventy-
third year of his age ; and the other, that
EDITH, his wife, followed him some five weeks
later.

But there is more. Between these two,
stands a beautifully fashioned cross of our
red Forest stone; and on the plinth below,
run these words :

To the Glory of God,
and in loving memory of

AINSLIE GORE,
only son of Rupert and Edith Gore,

who gave his life for his Country

on the Indian Frontier, 2oth October 1897,

in the 25th year of his age.

This cross is placed here

by the men, women, and children of this parish.

I often go there on the long summer even-

3 io AINSLIE GORE

ings, when the sound of bat and ball and
cheery laughter come from the village green,
and the shadows of great elms stretch them-
selves lazily over the cool grass.

Peace let it be ! for I loved him and love him for ever;
The dead are not dead but alive.

By the same Author

Large Post 8vo, 6s. net

The Spirit of the Old Folk

TIMES.

"The thought and its expressions are patently genuine.
. . . The book is a lesson to all. . . . The accounts of the
farm work are a valuable document."

SPECTATOR.

"All this intimate knowledge is enough to make a book
interesting ; clothe this soul in the flesh of Gloucestershire
speech, and it is also delightful."

ATHENAEUM.

' ' The writer is a shrewd observer. His portraits of old-
world villagers are delightful, and possess that true humour
which is more than half sadness."

SCOTSMAN.

" Lively pictures of English village life in a generation that
has passed away ; depicts the older peasantry with a rare
knowledge and appreciation."

NORTHERN WHIG.

" A truthful picture of one side of the life of long ago, very
beautifully and very sympathetically done. . . . The deep
tenderness and the insight, the affection for the land and its
dwellers, which breathe in every line of this book, remind one
of Kingsley."

GLASGOW HERALD.

"It is the glimpses of human nature here, illumined by a
perfect understanding, that will remain with us as a valuable
possession."

DUBLIN DAILY EXPRESS.

' ' Major Gambier- Parry writes chiefly of the farm labourers
of Gloucestershire, and reveals in every page his sympathy.
Clever, entertaining, and informing."

London: Smith, Elder & Co., 15 Waterloo Place, S.W.

[TURN OVER

By the same Author

Truth." An edifying volume for every age, but especially
for old age."

Large Post 8vo, 75. 6d. net

The Pageant of My Day

Representative Press Opinions

Times. " Welcome and refreshing. These musings and reveries, these
thoughts on discipline and resignation, have been hard won from life.
Many a flash of humour lightens and drives home the wisdom."

Dublin. Daily Express. "Not for many a day have we read anything
so beautifully done."

Liverpool Daily Post. " A book which one may open at almost any
page and read with delight."

A Volume of Rustic Vignettes
Large Post 8vo, 6s. net

Allegories of the Land

Athewzum. "The writer has an effective pen and a keen, well-trained
eye. The portrait of the old Squire who combined ideals and practice is
delightful.^

Standard. 111 It is a delightful book ; a book full of deep wisdom as well
as shrewd observation."

Globe. "This book has many delightful studies of land-workers and
villagers. "

British Weekly. "There are notes in it which recall Richard Jefferies
at his best."

With 2 Portraits. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. net

Murphy :
A Message to Dog Lovers

Manchester Guardian. "The sagacity, the wisdom, the cleverness, the
capacity for friendship of a dog receive full justice here."

Spectator. " We have read many books about dogs, have heard and told
many stories about them, but we have never come across anything quite
like this."

Punch. " It is a simple history of an Irish terrier, a beautiful and
supremely intelligent animal, who devoted to the service and joy of his
master an unsurpassable genius for love and friendship. Let dog lovers all
the world over read this book. They will be as grateful for it as I am."

The Animal World. " One of the best stories of a dog's life that we have
read for many a day."

Allgetneine Sport-Zeitung. "The narrative will delight every dog
lover, and can be strongly recommended." (Translation.)

London: Smith, Elder & Co., 15 Waterloo Place, S.W.

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